Saponins are plant glycosides that consist of a steroid, steroid alkaloid or triterpenoid aglycone and one or more sugar chains that are covalently linked by glycosidic binding to the aglycone. Glucose, galactose, glucuronic acid, xylose and rhamnose are commonly bound monosaccharides. Saponins are found in all organs of a variety of higher plants. Due to the great variability of their structures, diverse functions have been described for distinct saponins; including foaming and pore forming properties as well as selective removal of protozoa from the rumen. The most interesting properties are, however, favorable anti-tumorigenic effects. Several saponins inhibit tumor cell growth by cell cycle arrest and apoptosis with half maximal inhibitory concentrations of down to 0.2 microM. A drawback of saponins in tumor therapy is the non-targeted spreading throughout the whole body. Surprisingly, certain saponins were identified that drastically enhance the efficacy of targeted chimeric toxins bearing the ribosome-inactivating protein saporin as cell-killing moiety. It was demonstrated that this effect is substantially more pronounced on target cells than on non-target cells, thus not only preserving the target specificity of the chimeric toxin but also broadening the therapeutic window with simultaneous dose lowering. This review describes the role of saponins as drug in general, their use as single drug treatment in tumor therapy, their combination with conventional tumor treatment strategies and the synergistic effects with particular targeted tumor therapies that are based on recombinant proteins.

Protein-based targeted toxins play an increasingly important role in targeted tumor therapies. In spite of their high intrinsic toxicity, their efficacy in animal models is low. A major reason for this is the limited entry of the toxin into the cytosol of the target cell, which is required to mediate the fatal effect. Target receptor bound and internalized toxins are mostly either recycled back to the cell surface or lysosomally degraded. This might explain why no antibody-targeted protein toxin has been approved for tumor therapeutic applications by the authorities to date although more than 500 targeted toxins have been developed within the last decades. To overcome the problem of insufficient endosomal escape, a number of strategies that make use of diverse chemicals, cell-penetrating or fusogenic peptides, and light-induced techniques were designed to weaken the membrane integrity of endosomes. This review focuses on glycosylated triterpenoids as endosomal escape enhancers and throws light on their structure, the mechanism of action, and on their efficacy in cell culture and animal models. Obstacles, challenges, opportunities, and future prospects are discussed.

Abstract. Antibody-directed enzyme-prodrug therapy (ADEPT) aims at improving the specificity of conventional chemotherapy by employing artificial antibody-enzyme constructs to convert a non-toxic prodrug into a cytotoxic agent specifically localized to the tumor site. The gpA33 antigen is a promising target for ADEPT in colon cancer, as it is expressed by >95% of human colon cancers, but is absent in all non-gastrointestinal tissues. We designed a recombinant fusion construct of a phage display-generated anti-gpA33 single chain fragment, A33scFv, with cytosine deaminase from yeast (CDy), which converts 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC) into 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). The resulting construct, A33scFv::CDy, was overexpressed in Pichia pastoris and secreted into culture supernatant. The fusion protein was purified by affinity chromatography on protein L. Silver-staining after SDSpolyacrylamide gel electrophoresis confirmed molecular mass and purity. Antibody binding and specificity were quantified by flow cytometry. The complete ADEPT system was applied in vitro on gpA33-positive LIM1215 cells, assessing cell survival by a fluorescein diacetate assay. Cytotoxicity of the prodrug 5-FC after A33scFv::CDy binding was equimolar to that of 5-FU, and this effect depended specifically on both antibody and enzyme function. These results demonstrate bifunctional activity of the heterogeneous Pichia-produced A33scFv::CDy fusion protein and proof of principle for the ADEPT system proposed herein. IntroductionMonoclonal antibodies have become an accepted modality of cancer therapy. Recombinant antibodies and antibody-based fusion proteins hold the promise of further extending the therapeutic possibilities of this modality. Single chain variable fragments (scFv) consist of the variable regions of an antibody's heavy and light chains fused together via a flexible linker, whose length determines the quaternary structure. Thus, they carry the complete antigen binding site in a single polypeptide chain of only about 30 kDa. In tumor targeting, scFv have demonstrated excellent tumor penetration, high ratios of tumor to normal tissue concentration, and low background (1,2). This makes them attractive targeting components of bifunctional fusion proteins such as those needed for antibodydirected enzyme-prodrug therapy (ADEPT). In ADEPT, after binding of an antibody-enzyme construct to the cognate tumor antigen, the enzyme component converts a prodrug into a cytotoxic drug, thus generating drug activity specifically in tumor tissue (3,4).Several ADEPT systems have shown promising in vivo efficacy in a number of tumor models (5) and in several xenograft systems in nude mice (4,6-8), demonstrating in principle that ADEPT can target tumor tissue with high selectivity and deliver chemotherapeutic drugs with high intratumoral concentrations.Senter's group first used bacterial cytosine deaminase for ADEPT to catalyze the deamination of 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC), which is non-toxic in mammals, into 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) (9). Clinical studies on ADEPT have pro...

Chemical conjugates of monoclonal antibodies with fluorophores or enzymes have long been used for diagnostic purposes and experimental therapeutic approaches. Recombinant technology allows for the design and expression of tailored genuine fusion proteins, providing defined molecules as to size, molar ratios of the functional components and stability. The production of functional protein, however, is often limited or impossible due to refolding and solubility problems. Here, we report on the production of a soluble recombinant fusion construct, A33scFv-green fluorescent protein (A33scFv::GFP) in Pichia pastoris. A33scFv is a single-chain antibody recognizing the A33 antigen, which is expressed by approximately 95% of colorectal carcinomas and has become a focus of pre-clinical and clinical investigation. The fusion partner GFP was selected both as an experimental tool for functional studies of the A33 antigen and as a potential diagnostic for colon cancer detection and therapy planning. Pichia pastoris yeast strains were transformed with A33scFv::GFP cDNA under the methanol-inducible AOX1 promotor. The construct was properly expressed and secreted into culture supernatants as a soluble protein, which was bifunctional without additional renaturation or solubilization steps. The crude protein solution was purified by affinity chromatography. Surface plasmon resonance, flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy on sections of normal and cancerous colon tissue revealed specific binding and the applicability of this fusion protein for diagnostic purposes. In addition, the biodistribution of A33scFv::GFP was analyzed in mice bearing A33-positive tumor xenografts, confirming specific tumor targeting.

Recombinant antibody fusion constructs with heterologous functional domains are a promising approach to new therapeutic targeting strategies. However, expression of such constructs is mostly limited to cost and labor-intensive mammalian expression systems. Here we report on the employment of Pichia pastoris for the expression of heterologous antibody fusion constructs with green fluorescent protein, A33scFv::GFP, or with cytosine deaminase, A33scFv::CDy, their production in a biofermenter and a modified purification strategy. Combined, these approaches improved production yields by about thirty times over established standard protocols, with extracellular secretion of the fusion construct reaching 12.0 mg/l. Bifunctional activity of the fusion proteins was demonstrated by flow cytometry and an in-vitro cytotoxicity assay. With equal amounts of purified protein, the modified purification method lead to higher functional results. Our results demonstrate the suitability of methylotrophic Pichia expression systems and laboratory-scale bioreactors for the production of high quantities of bifunctionally active heterologous single-chain fusion proteins.