Applications of SNAP‐tag technology in skin cancer therapy

Abstract

Background Cancer treatment in the 21st century has seen immense advances in optical imaging and immunotherapy. Significant progress has been made in the bioengineering and production of immunoconjugates to achieve the goal of specifically targeting tumors. Discussion In the 21st century, antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) have been the focus of immunotherapeutic strategies in cancer. ADCs combine the unique targeting of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with the cancer killing ability of cytotoxic drugs. However, due to random conjugation methods of drug to antibody, ADCs are associated with poor antigen specificity and low cytotoxicity, resulting in a drug to antibody ratio (DAR) >1. This means that the cytotoxic drugs in ADCs are conjugated randomly to antibodies, by cysteine or lysine residues. This generates heterogeneous ADC populations with 0 to 8 drugs per an antibody, each with distinct pharmacokinetic, efficacy, and toxicity properties. Additionally, heterogeneity is created not only by different antibody to ligand ratios but also by different sites of conjugation. Hence, much effort has been made to find and establish antibody conjugation strategies that enable us to better control stoichiometry and site‐specificity. This includes utilizing protein self‐labeling tags as fusion partners to the original protein. Site‐specific conjugation is a significant characteristic of these engineered proteins. SNAP‐tag is one such engineered self‐labeling protein tag shown to have promising potential in cancer treatment. The SNAP‐tag is fused to an antibody of choice and covalently reacts specifically in a 1:1 ratio with benzylguanine (BG) substrates, eg, fluorophores or photosensitizers, to target skin cancer. This makes SNAP‐tag a versatile technique in optical imaging and photoimmunotherapy of skin cancer. Conclusion SNAP‐tag technology has the potential to contribute greatly to a broad range of molecular oncological applications because it combines efficacious tumor targeting, minimized local and systemic toxicity, and noninvasive assessment of diagnostic/prognostic molecular biomarkers of cancer.

Using the SNAP-Tag technology to easily measure and demonstrate apoptotic changes in cancer and blood cells with different dyes

“…For this purpose, we employed the well-established SNAP-tag technology [18][19][20][21][22][23]. The SNAP-tag is a self-labeling protein-tag, which allows a rapid and simple labelling reaction with a variety of benzylguanine (BG)-modified dyes or fluorophores with various wavelengths [19][20][21][24][25][26]. In previous studies, we could demonstrate the successful secretion and production of recombinant AV in a mammalian expression system [8].…”

Simple plant‐based production and purification of the assembled human ferritin heavy chain as a nanocarrier for tumor‐targeted drug delivery and bioimaging in cancer therapy

“…More advanced modifications would allow selective binding to cells other than those presenting TfR1 (Wang et al, 2021). Additionally, drug‐loaded ferritin particles can be coupled to probes such as cell membrane‐binding peptides (Wang et al, 2021) via N‐terminal SNAP‐tag fusions, allowing their rapid deployment as targeted theranostics (Padayachee et al, 2019). Drug‐loaded ferritin nanocarriers are highly versatile, and the low‐cost production method presented here could be expanded to supply researchers working on tumor‐targeted drug delivery nanoformulations with the necessary quantities of protein.…”

Technological Applications in Skin Cancer Prevention

“…The validation is important because of the risk of false negatives. False negatives occur when a test or application says you do not have a condition when you do [19]. This could be concerning in the case of a possible skin cancer, when early detection is so critical.…”