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Antibody-drug conjugates with dual payloads for combating breast tumor heterogeneity and drug resistance.

Chisato M YamazakiAiko YamaguchiYasuaki AnamiWei XiongYoshihiro OtaniJangsoon LeeNaoto Tada UenoNingyan ZhangZhiqiang AnKyoji Tsuchikama
Published in: Nature communications (2021)
Breast tumors generally consist of a diverse population of cells with varying gene expression profiles. Breast tumor heterogeneity is a major factor contributing to drug resistance, recurrence, and metastasis after chemotherapy. Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are emerging chemotherapeutic agents with striking clinical success, including T-DM1 for HER2-positive breast cancer. However, these ADCs often suffer from issues associated with intratumor heterogeneity. Here, we show that homogeneous ADCs containing two distinct payloads are a promising drug class for addressing this clinical challenge. Our conjugates show HER2-specific cell killing potency, desirable pharmacokinetic profiles, minimal inflammatory response, and marginal toxicity at therapeutic doses. Notably, a dual-drug ADC exerts greater treatment effect and survival benefit than does co-administration of two single-drug variants in xenograft mouse models representing intratumor HER2 heterogeneity and elevated drug resistance. Our findings highlight the therapeutic potential of the dual-drug ADC format for treating refractory breast cancer and perhaps other cancers.
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