Cited by 357Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies Researchvaccines and immunoinformatics approachesComputational Drug Discovery Methods

Five computational developability guidelines for therapeutic antibody profiling

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Raybould, Matthew I. J., Marks, Claire, Krawczyk, Konrad, Taddese, Bruck, Nowak, Jaroslaw, Lewis, Alan P., Bujotzek, Alexander, Shi, Jiye +1 more·2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Abstract

Therapeutic mAbs must not only bind to their target but must also be free from "developability issues" such as poor stability or high levels of aggregation. While small-molecule drug discovery benefits from Lipinski's rule of five to guide the selection of molecules with appropriate biophysical properties, there is currently no in silico analog for antibody design. Here, we model the variable domain structures of a large set of post-phase-I clinical-stage antibody therapeutics (CSTs) and calculate in silico metrics to estimate their typical properties. In each case, we contextualize the CST distribution against a snapshot of the human antibody gene repertoire. We describe guideline values for five metrics thought to be implicated in poor developability: the total length of the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs), the extent and magnitude of surface hydrophobicity, positive charge and negative charge in the CDRs, and asymmetry in the net heavy- and light-chain surface charges. The guideline cutoffs for each property were derived from the values seen in CSTs, and a flagging system is proposed to identify nonconforming candidates. On two mAb drug discovery sets, we were able to selectively highlight sequences with developability issues. We make available the Therapeutic Antibody Profiler (TAP), a computational tool that builds downloadable homology models of variable domain sequences, tests them against our five developability guidelines, and reports potential sequence liabilities and canonical forms. TAP is freely available at opig.stats.ox.ac.uk/webapps/sabdab-sabpred/TAP.php.

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  • Established structural bioinformatics methods such as homology modelling, protein-protein docking or protein interface prediction are already used for rational antibody design.

    “Established structural bioinformatics methods such as homology modelling [6, 7], protein–protein docking [8, 9] or protein interface prediction [10] are already used for rational antibody design [11–13].”
  • Natural preferences in antibody repertoires can be used as a reference to assess the biophysical properties of therapeutic antibodies or to develop naturally focused surface display libraries.

    “Among others, such natural preferences can be used as a reference to assess the biophysical properties of therapeutic antibodies [13] or to develop naturally focused surface display libraries [26].”
  • Resources exist that curate the therapeutic antibody information, such as TABS and SAbDab-Therapeutic-Antibodies.

    “Resources exist that curate the therapeutic antibody information, such as TABS (https://tabs.craic.com/) and SAbDab-Therapeutic-Antibodies [13].”
  • Accurate structural information can be used during Lead Optimization to assess developability indicators such as hydrophobicity that rely on accurate models of the molecular surface of the paratope and epitope.

    “Accurate structural information can be used during the Lead Optimization stage to assess various developability indicators, such as hydrophobicity [13] that rely on accurate models of the molecular surface of the paratope and epitope.”
  • Among Raybould et al.'s guidelines, a structure-based hydrophobicity score is calculated and compared to the distribution of the same score in naturally sourced NGS sequences.

    “Among these a structure-based hydrophobicity score is calculated and the value is then compared to the distribution of the same score in naturally sourced NGS sequences.”

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Authors
Raybould, M. I. J., Marks, C., Krawczyk, K., Taddese, B., Nowak, J., Lewis, A. P., Bujotzek, A., Shi, J., & Deane, C. M.
Affiliations
  • University of Oxford (GB)
  • Department of Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering, MedImmune, Cambridge CB21 6GH, United Kingdom;
  • Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LB, United Kingdom;
  • GlaxoSmithKline (United Kingdom) (GB)
  • Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, Large Molecule Research, Roche Innovation Center Munich, DE-82377 Penzberg, Germany;
  • UCB Pharma (United Kingdom) (GB)
Corresponding author
Deane, Charlotte M.
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2019-02-14
Volume
116
Issue
10
Pages
4025-4030
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W2913847447
Cited by
357
References
42
Citations by year
2026: 60 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 56 · 2023: 58 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 18
FWCI
21.48
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • RCUK | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L016044/1)
  • RCUK | Medical Research Council (EP/L016044/1)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies Research
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
Keywords
therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, developability, antibody design, hypervariable region, surface hydrophobicity, surface charge, antibody stability, aggregation, homology modeling
MeSH terms
Antibodies, Monoclonal, Computer Simulation, Humans, Models, Molecular, Complementarity Determining Regions, Drug Discovery

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