Towards Multi-Specific Anti-gp120 Artificial Antibody.

Journal: ChemMedChem
Published:
Abstract

Broadly neutralizing antibodies are potential therapeutic drugs that can recognize and block viral entry. But many viruses, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), mutate rapidly and thus evade therapeutic antibodies. Multi-specific antibodies and combinations of different antibodies can effectively suppress immune evasion. However, many barriers hinder the development of multi-specific antibodies, and the cost of combining multiple antibodies is very high. Previously, we demonstrated that a class of gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-based artificial antibodies, called goldbodies, can be created by simply grafting the complementary determining regions (CDRs) of antibodies onto AuNPs. Herein, we create four monospecific anti-gp120 goldbodies by grafting the HIV gp120-binding fragment of the CD4 protein and the CDR3 loops of three anti-gp120 antibodies onto AuNPs, respectively. Remarkably, as a first proof-of-concept study, we show that the four different fragments can be grafted onto the same AuNP particle, thus creating a new type of goldbody with a very high binding affinity for gp120. In principle, this new type of goldbody costs the same as a single monospecific goldbody, but it has the potential to serve as a multi-specific goldbody or a combination of multiple goldbodies.

Authors
Yiwei Sun, Rui Ni, Yuan-yuan Liu, Haifang Wang, Aoneng Cao
Relevant Conditions

HIV/AIDS