Site-Specific Conjugation of Native Antibodies Using Engineered Microbial Transglutaminases

Abstract

Site-specific bioconjugation technologies are frequently employed to generate homogeneous antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) and are generally considered superior to stochastic approaches like lysine coupling. However, most of the technologies developed so far require undesired manipulation of the antibody sequence or its glycan structures. Herein, we report the successful engineering of microbial transglutaminase enabling efficient, site-specific conjugation of drug-linker constructs to position HC-Q295 of native, fully glycosylated IgG-type antibodies. ADCs generated via this approach demonstrate excellent stability in vitro as well as strong efficacy in vitro and in vivo. As it employs different drug-linker structures and several native antibodies, our study additionally proves the broad applicability of this approach.