Targeted strategies to deliver and retain drugs to kidneys
are
needed to improve drug accumulation and efficacy in a myriad of kidney
diseases. These drug delivery systems show potential for improving
the therapeutic windows of drugs acting in the kidney. Biodistribution
of antibody-based therapeutics in vivo is governed by several factors
including binding affinity, size, and valency. Investigations of how
the biophysical and biochemical properties of biologics enable them
to overcome biological barriers and reach kidneys are therefore of
interest. Although renal accumulation of antibody fragments in cancer
diagnostics and treatment has been observed, reports on effective
delivery of antibody fragments to the kidneys remain scarce. Previously,
we demonstrated that targeting plasmalemma vesicle-associated protein
(PV1), a caveolae-associated protein, can promote accumulation of
antibodies in both the lungs and the kidneys. Here, by fine-tuning
the binding affinity of an antibody toward PV1, we observe that the
anti-PV1 antibody with reduced binding affinity lost the capability
for kidney targeting while retaining the lung targeting activity,
suggesting that binding affinity is a critical factor for kidney targeting
of the anti-PV1 antibody. We next use the antibody fragment F(ab′)2 targeting PV1 to assess the dual effects of rapid kidney
filtration and PV1 targeting on kidney-selective targeting. Ex vivo
fluorescence imaging results demonstrated that after rapidly accumulating
in kidneys at 4 h, PV1-targeted F(ab′)2 was continually
retained in the kidney at 24 h, whereas the isotype control F(ab′)2 underwent urinary elimination with significantly reduced
signaling in the kidney. Confocal imaging studies confirmed the localization
of PV1-targeted F(ab′)2 in the kidney. In addition,
the monovalent antibody fragment (Fab-C4) lost the capability for
kidney homing, indicating that the binding avidity of anti-PV1 F(ab′)2 is important for kidney targeting. Our findings suggest that
PV1-targeted F(ab′)2 might be useful as a drug carrier
for renal targeting and highlight the importance of affinity optimization
for tissue targeting antibodies.