Gyrolab Spin Blog: affinity

Development of high-affinity binding interactions and utilization of the appropriate tools for affinity determination are the ultimate goals of antibody therapeutic R&D. The expansion of protein engineering methods has provided powerful techniques for affinity maturation of biotherapeutics to accomplish at least part of this goal. In particular, the recent use of phage display methods for antibody affinity evolution have produced high affinity antibodies in the picomolar dissociation constant (K_D) range, also with high specificity, such as the TNF-α inhibitor Humira^® (AbbVie Inc.)^1,2

The value of affinity determination in assay development and throughout drug development

The drive to lower drug dosage, improve healthcare and reduce costs has lead to the search for therapeutic antibodies with high target affinity. As a consequence, optimizing and monitoring the specificity and affinity of drug candidates to the target molecule has become critical in the development of therapeutic antibodies – from early screening of hybridomas or recombinant antibodies from phage display libraries, to affinity maturation and antibody engineering to improve the efficacy, safety and manufacturability of the final antibody drug product. Characterizing affinity is also important when selecting reagents for quantitative assays or assessing drug product activity in manufacturing release tests. The question is, how can high affinity be measured in the best possible way?

Rapid in-solution equilibrium approach to K_D determination of biotherapeutic drug candidates

 
During our latest webinar, Johan Engström, Senior Scientist at Gyros Protein Technolgies gave a short introduction to Gyrolab technology and how you to set up and evaluate classical in-solution equilibrium experiments for determination of sub-nanomolar K_D’s and active concentrations of interactants. Johan also gave examples of determinations of picomolar affinities for several marketed TNFα antagonists.