细胞培养过程对单克隆抗体糖基化修饰的影响和调控

在单克隆抗体药生产过程中,其糖基化修饰可能受到多种工艺参数的影响,因而容易产生异质性,并且抗体糖基化和抗体半衰期、免疫源性、ADCC、CDC等密切相关,所以单克隆抗体的糖基化修饰是重要的质量属性,需要在生物药尤其是生物类似药开发过程中重点关注,并加以调控。通过概述培养过程中的细胞株、培养工艺,以及培养基对糖型的影响,讨论如何在工艺开发过程开展研究,确保产品糖基化的一致性,从而保证单抗药物的疗效及安全性。     

细胞培养过程对单克隆抗体糖基化修饰的影响和调控

在单克隆抗体药生产过程中,其糖基化修饰可能受到多种工艺参数的影响,因而容易产生异质性,并且抗体糖基化和抗体半衰期、免疫源性、ADCC、CDC等密切相关,所以单克隆抗体的糖基化修饰是重要的质量属性,需要在生物药尤其是生物类似药开发过程中重点关注,并加以调控。通过概述培养过程中的细胞株、培养工艺,以及培养基对糖型的影响,讨论如何在工艺开发过程开展研究,确保产品糖基化的一致性,从而保证单抗药物的疗效及安全性。     

新型冠状病毒的糖基化、糖受体识别及糖链抑制剂的发现北大核心CSCD

新型冠状病毒疫情(COVID-19)是21世纪截至目前人类面对的最为严重的公共卫生事件。疫苗、中和抗体以及小分子化合药物的出现有效预防和阻止了COVID-19的快速传播,而不断出现的病毒突变体却使这些疫苗及药物的效价降低,这对COVID-19的预防及治疗提出了新的挑战。新型冠状病毒(SARS-CoV-2)通常会先黏附于呼吸道表面的大分子糖链——硫酸乙酰肝素,进而与特异性受体人血管紧张素转化酶2(human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2,hACE2)结合,从而实现对人体的侵入。SARS-CoV-2的刺突(spike,S)蛋白是高度糖基化的,而糖基化对于hACE2与S蛋白的结合也有着重要影响,S蛋白在宿主体内还会被一系列凝集素受体所结合,这意味着糖链在SARS-CoV-2的入侵及感染过程中有着重要的作用。基于SARS-CoV-2的糖基化及糖受体识别机制开发糖链抑制剂可能是预防或治疗新型冠状病毒感染的有效手段,相关研究发现海洋来源的硫酸化多糖、肝素分子及其他的一些糖类具有抗SARS-CoV-2的活性。本文系统阐述了新型冠状病毒的糖基化及其糖链在入侵、感染中的作用,并对抗SARS-CoV-2糖链抑制剂的发现和机制研究现状进行了总结,在此基础上还对糖类抗病毒药物的机遇与挑战进行了展望。     

治疗性抗体药物开发中IgG亚型选择

治疗性抗体药物针对不同的适应证具有专一性和有效性。目前已上市的治疗性抗体药物多是以IgG为框架开发的,并且绝大部分属于IgG1亚型。在治疗性抗体药物的开发中,由于各亚型具有不同的结构与功能,影响其理化性质、生物活性和触发效应功能的能力等,为达到期望的治疗效果并且避免不良反应,应选择适宜的抗体亚型进行抗体设计。主要综述了影响IgG亚型选择的相关因素,以及IgG1、IgG2和IgG4亚型在治疗性抗体药物开发中的应用研究,以期为治疗性抗体药物研发提供新思路。     

中枢神经系统疾病治疗性抗体药物应用进展

单克隆抗体药物是一种新兴的治疗药物,具有高选择性,被用于多种疾病的治疗,如肿瘤、免疫疾病等,也可以用于中枢神经系统疾病,如阿尔茨海默病、帕金森病、中风和脑肿瘤等。然而,因为血脑屏障低通透性,限制了抗体药物在中枢神经系统疾病治疗中的应用,在很多神经系统疾病临床试验中,抗体药物并没有取得预期效果。如今,人们利用血脑屏障上内源性转运蛋白介导,设计了可以通过血脑屏障的抗体药物。对通过血脑屏障治疗性抗体药物研发进展及其应用前景进行了综述。     

抗体成药性筛选流程及评价策略

自1986年OKT3作为第一个治疗性单克隆抗体获批上市后,抗体技术及抗体药物迅猛发展。单克隆抗体、抗体片段、双(多)特异性抗体、融合蛋白、纳米抗体以及抗体偶联药物(antibody-drug conjugates, ADCs)等推陈出新,在肿瘤、血液、免疫、呼吸和代谢等相关疾病的治疗领域发挥着举足轻重的作用。抗体药物的发现过程,是通过多轮生物学功能评估和可成药性评估,筛选出具有安全、有效、稳定和可工艺放大的最佳候选序列,从而提高药物开发和临床研究的效率及成功率。抗体药物发现阶段的“成药性筛选与评估”已日益受到关注和重视,从药物发现和设计、先导分子筛选到候选分子确认,可及时发现分子潜在的物理化学风险因素,并评估可控性,保证后续药物开发过程中的质量稳定性。本文对抗体发现阶段的成药性筛选评估流程进行了分类和定义,涉及单克隆抗体、双特异性抗体、纳米抗体和ADCs等相关技术和药物形式,同时总结了成药性筛选评估中应重点关注的质量属性和高通量检测技术;系统性地阐述成药性开发流程和策略,为不断涌现的创新型药物的成药性筛选评估提供参考,大幅提高抗体药物开发的效率和成功率。     

蛋白多肽类药物长效化技术研究策略

多肽/蛋白质类药物普遍存在体内半衰期短的问题,使其应用受到了限制。近年来,蛋白质半衰期的研究取得了很大的进展,许多技术已经被提出并测试延长治疗性蛋白的作用时间,如与其他蛋白基因融合(免疫球蛋白域或血清蛋白,如白蛋白)、与聚合物结合(PEG化修饰、聚唾液酸化、HEP化等)。这些技术主要基于本身较长的半衰期及循环机制调控以延长多肽/蛋白质类药物的半衰期。针对上述的多种长效化方式及相关产品进行了综述与讨论,以期为此类药物的长效化研究提供思路。     

综述: 病毒与宿主细胞的糖基化修饰及相关功能

病毒的复制和对宿主的入侵与自身结构蛋白的糖基化修饰密切相关．对于宿主而言,在病毒感染宿主和宿主抗病毒的过程中,宿主的糖基化过程一方面可抑制病毒的复制和入侵,另一方面可促进病毒对宿主的感染,抑制宿主糖苷酶可抑制病毒的复制．从病毒方面来看,由于病毒自身缺乏糖基化修饰系统,病毒的糖基化过程是借宿主细胞内的合成系统对自身进行糖基化修饰．病毒的糖基化过程对病毒蛋白的折叠与稳定、病毒的感染和入侵、参与识别宿主细胞受体和参与病毒的免疫逃逸等过程起着重要的作用．随着糖基化研究技术的发展,以糖基化为基础的功能应用也越来越深入：如新型病毒疫苗和新型抗病毒药物的研制,以糖蛋白质组学研究为基础的质谱技术和生物信息学方法的发展,以及利用糖基化对病毒性疾病的诊断和治疗等,这些均为糖基化深入研究发展奠定了基础．本文就病毒与宿主细胞糖基化过程、相关功能以及研究应用等进展作一综述．     

饥饿对小鼠脑中tau蛋白磷酸化和O-GlcNAc糖基化的影响

为了探讨大脑中葡萄糖摄取和代谢障碍在阿尔茨海默病(Alzheimer$sdisease,AD)神经退行性病变中的作用,将昆明种小鼠进行饥饿和再喂食处理,并使用多种磷酸化tau蛋白特异性的抗体和蛋白O-GlcNAc糖基化特异性抗体进行检测,观察饥饿及恢复喂养后不同时间点大脑皮质中tau蛋白糖基化及多个位点磷酸化的变化.结果显示:饥饿处理引起小鼠大脑皮质中总蛋白和tau蛋白的O-GlcNAc糖基化水平降低,同时tau蛋白磷酸化水平升高,饥饿引起的tauO-GlcNAc糖基化和磷酸化改变均在恢复进食后逆转成正常水平.该研究结果提示:大脑中tau蛋白的磷酸化和O-GlcNAc糖基化之间存在相互调节,脑中葡萄糖代谢障碍可能通过下调tau蛋白O-GlcNAc糖基化水平使tau蛋白产生异常过度磷酸化,进而促发AD的病理进程.这一结果为在早期阶段通过逆转tau蛋白异常过度磷酸化治疗AD成为可能提供了实验基础.     

酵母糖基化改造工程研究进展

酵母真核表达系统是常用的安全性较高的外源蛋白表达系统。酵母细胞内存在翻译后糖基化修饰过程,对其糖基化修饰系统进行改造可用于生产人源糖蛋白。研究表明,可以通过基因工程手段消除酵母特有的内源糖基化反应、引入哺乳动物细胞表达系统中糖基化类型等方法对酵母糖基化路径进行改造。近年来许多研究通过对酵母菌株糖基化位点突变、基因缺失等方法对酵母糖基化系统进行改造,探究糖基化修饰对蛋白质功能的影响,这为利用酵母生产治疗性蛋白和新型糖基化疫苗提供了新的思路。本综述将对近年来酵母糖基化改造成果及研究进展进行综述。     

Glycation of antibodies: Modification,methods and potential effects on biological functions

Glycation is an important protein modification that could potentially affect bioactivity and molecular stability, and glycation of therapeutic proteins such as monoclonal antibodies should be well characterized. Glycated protein could undergo further degradation into advance glycation end (AGE) products. Here, we review the root cause of glycation during the manufacturing, storage and in vivo circulation of therapeutic antibodies, and the current analytical methods used to detect and characterize glycation and AGEs, including boronate affinity chromatography, charge-based methods, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and colorimetric assay. The biological effects of therapeutic protein glycation and AGEs, which ranged from no affect to loss of activity, are also discussed.     

Controlling glycation of recombinant antibody in fed-batch cell cultures

Protein glycation is a non-enzymatic glycosylation that can occur to proteins in the human body, and it is implicated in the pathogenesis of multiple chronic diseases. Glycation can also occur to recombinant antibodies during cell culture, which generates structural heterogeneity in the product. In a previous study, we discovered unusually high levels of glycation (>50%) in a recombinant monoclonal antibody (rhuMAb) produced by CHO cells. Prior to that discovery, we had not encountered such high levels of glycation in other in-house therapeutic antibodies. Our goal here is to develop cell culture strategies to decrease rhuMAb glycation in a reliable, reproducible, and scalable manner. Because glycation is a post-translational chemical reaction between a reducing sugar and a protein amine group, we hypothesized that lowering the concentration of glucose--the only source of reducing sugar in our fed-batch cultures--would lower the extent of rhuMAb glycation. When we decreased the supply of glucose to bioreactors from bolus nutrient and glucose feeds, rhuMAb glycation decreased to below 20% at both 2-L and 400-L scales. When we maintained glucose concentrations at lower levels in bioreactors with continuous feeds, we could further decrease rhuMAb glycation levels to below 10%. These results show that we can control glycation of secreted proteins by controlling the glucose concentration in the cell culture. In addition, our data suggest that rhuMAb glycation occurring during the cell culture process may be approximated as a second-order chemical reaction that is first order with respect to both glucose and non-glycated rhuMAb. The basic principles of this glycation model should apply to other recombinant proteins secreted during cell culture.     

Natural antibodies as a sensor of electronegative damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs)

Natural antibodies (Abs), predominantly IgMs, play an important function in the host response to the recognition of endogenous danger signals called damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). Many of the natural IgM Abs also show several different antigenic cross-reactivities toward covalently modified proteins, such as oxidized low-density lipoproteins and advanced glycation end products. Of interest, a recent study has shown that these DAMPs have several physicochemical characteristics that differ from native proteins, such as an increased negative charge due to modification of the lysine residues. This finding may provide a mechanistic insight into the multispecificity of the natural Abs.     

Peptide and amino acid glycation: new insights into the Maillard reaction.

Nonenzymatic glycation of proteins, peptides and other macromolecules (the Maillard reaction) has been implicated in a number of pathologies, most clearly in diabetes mellitus. but also in the normal processes of aging and neurodegenerative amyloid diseases such as Alzheimer's. In the early stage, glycation results in the formation of Amadori-modified proteins. In the later stages, advanced glycation end products (AGE) are irreversibly formed from Amadori products leading to the formation of reactive intermediates, crosslinking of proteins, and the formation of brown and fluorescent polymeric materials. Although, the glycation of structural proteins has been attributed a key role in the complications of diabetes, recent attention has been devoted to the physiological significance of glycated peptide hormones. This review focuses on the physico-chemical properties of the Amadori compounds of bioactive peptides of endogenous and exogenous origin, such as Leu-enkephalin and morphiceptin, investigated under different conditions as well as on novel pathways in the Maillard reaction observed from investigating intramolecular events in ester-linked glycopeptides.     

Posttranslational modifications of nerve cytoskeletal proteins in experimental diabetes

Axonal transport is known to be impaired in peripheral nerve of experimentally diabetic rats. As axonal transport is dependent on the integrity of the neuronal cytoskeleton, we have studied the way in which rat brain and nerve cytoskeletal proteins are altered in experimental diabetes. Rats were made diabetic by injection of streptozotocin (STZ). Up to six weeks later, sciatic nerves, spinal cords, and brains were removed and used to prepare neurofilaments, microtubules, and a crude preparation of cytoskeletal proteins. The extent of nonenzymatic glycation of brain microtubule proteins and peripheral nerve tubulin was assessed by incubation with³H-sodium borohydride followed by separation on two-dimensional polyacrylamide gels and affinity chromatography of the separated proteins. There was no difference in the nonenzymatic glycation of brain microtubule proteins from two-week diabetic and nondiabetic rats. Nor was the assembly of microtubule proteins into microtubules affected by the diabetic state. On the other hand, there was a significant increase in nonenzymatic glycation of sciatic nerve tubulin after 2 weeks of diabetes. We also identified an altered electrophoretic mobility of brain actin from a cytoskeletal protein preparation from brain of 2 week and 6 week diabetic rats. An additional novel polypeptide was demonstrated with a slightly more acidic isoelectric point than actin that could be immunostained with anti-actin antibodies. The same polypeptide could be produced by incubation of purified actin with glucose in vitro, thus identifying it as a product of nonenzymatic glycation. These results are discussed in relation to data from a clinical study of diabetic patients in which we identified increased glycation of platelet actin. STZ-diabetes also led to an increase in the phosphorylation of spinal cord neurofilament proteins in vivo during 6 weeks of diabetes. This hyperphosphorylation along with a reduced activity of a neurofilament-associated protein kinase led to a reduced incorporation of³²P into purified neurofilament proteins when they were incubated with³²P-ATP in vitro. Our combined data show a number of posttranslation modifications of neuronal cytoskeletal proteins that may contribute to the altered axonal transport and subsequent nerve dysfunction in experimental diabetes.     

Kinetic modeling as a tool to understand the influence of cell culture process parameters on the glycation of monoclonal antibody biotherapeutics

Glycation, the nonenzymatic reaction between the reducing sugar glucose and the primary amine residues on amino acid side chains, commonly occurs in the cell culture supernatant during production of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). While glycation has the potential to impact efficacy and pharmacokinetic properties for mAbs, the most common undesirable impact of glycation is on the distribution of charged species, often a release specification for commercial processes. Existing empirical approaches are usually insufficient to rationalize the effects of cell line and process changes on glycation. To address this gap, we developed a kinetic model for estimating mAb glycation levels during the cell culture process. The rate constant for glycation, including temperature and pH dependence, was estimated by fitting the kinetic model to time-course glycation data from bioreactors operated at different process settings that yielded a wide range of glycation values. The parameter values were further validated by independently estimating glycation rate constants using cell-free incubation studies at various temperatures. The model was applied to another mAb, by re-estimating the activation energy to account for effect of a glycation “hotspot”. The model was further utilized to study the role of temperature shift as an approach to reduce glycation levels in the manufacturing process for mAb2. While a downshift in temperature resulted in lowering of glycation levels for mAb2, the model helped elucidate that this effect was caused due to contribution from changes in glucose consumption, mAb secretion and temperature, instead of a direct impact of temperature alone on the kinetic rate of glycation.     

Formation of advanced glycation end (AGE) products in diabetes: Prevention by pyruvate and a-keto glutarate

Glycation of proteins and their subsequent structural and functional modifications have been ascribed to play a prominent role in the pathogenesis of several secondary complications of diabetes, such as cataract and retinopathy. In addition, it plays a role in the generalized ageing process as well. Investigations have been conducted to explore the possibility of preventing the above process by use of pyruvate and a-keto glutarate as representatives of physiologically compatible keto acids. The results demonstrate that both these compounds are effective in preventing the initial glycation reaction as well as the formation of AGE products. Both these compounds also inhibit the generation of high molecular weight aggregates associated with cataract formation. Mechanistically, the preventive effects appear to be due to (1) competitive inhibition of glycation by the keto acids and (2) the antioxidant (radical scavenging) properties of these compounds. The results are hence considered usefu l from the point of view of developing these and other keto acid derivatives as pharmacological agents useful in preventing glycation related protein changes and consequent tissue pathological manifestations.     

A chemical and computational approach to comprehensive glycation characterization on antibodies

Non-enzymatic glycation is a challenging post-translational modification to characterize due to the structural heterogeneity it generates in proteins. Glycation has become increasingly recognized as an important product quality attribute to monitor, particularly for the biotechnology sector, which produces recombinant proteins under conditions that are amenable to protein glycation. The elucidation of sites of glycation can be problematic using conventional collision-induced dissociation (CID)-based mass spectrometry because of the predominance of neutral loss ions. A method to characterize glycation using an IgG1 monoclonal antibody (mAb) as a model is reported here. The sugars present on this mAb were derivatized using sodium borohydride chemistry to stabilize the linkage and identified using CID-based MS² mass spectrometry and spectral search engines. Quantification of specific glycation sites was then done using a targeted MS¹ based approach, which allowed the identification of a glycation hot spot in the heavy chain complementarity-determining region 3 of the mAb. This targeted approach provided a path forward to developing a structural understanding of the propensity of sites to become glycated on mAbs. Through structural analysis we propose a model in which the number and 3-dimensional distances of carboxylic acid amino acyl residues create a favorable environment for glycation to occur.     

Carnosine and anserine act as effective transglycating agents in decomposition of aldose-derived Schiff bases

There are numerous publications describing the positive effects of carnosine (beta-alanyl-histidine) and anserine (beta-alanyl-1-N-methyl-histidine) on cell and organ function. Of special interest to us is the fact that these dipeptides act to retard and (in one instance) reverse non-enzymatic glycation. To date, the primary explanation for these anti-glycating effects has been the fact that carnosine and anserine can serve as alternative and competitive glycation targets, thereby protecting proteins from this deleterious process. In this paper, we document another mechanism by which these two peptides can retard or reverse glycation. The process involves decomposition of the very first intermediates of the non-enzymatic glycation cascade (aldosamines a.k.a. Schiff bases) by nucleophilic attack of carnosine and/or anserine on the preformed aldosamine such as glucosyl-lysine. If future research shows this reaction is to be physiologically important, this mechanism could explain some of the beneficial effects of carnosine and anserine as anti-glycating agents.