XTEN as Biological Alternative to PEGylation Allows Complete Expression of a Protease-Activatable Killin-Based Cytostatic

Increased effectiveness and reduced side effects are general goals in drug research, especially important in cancer therapy. The aim of this study was to design a long-circulating, activatable cytostatic drug that is completely producible in E. coli. Crucial for this goal was the novel unstructured polypeptide XTEN, which acts like polyethylene glycol (PEG) but has many important advantages. Most importantly, it can be produced in E. coli, is less immunogenic, and is biodegradable. We tested constructs containing a fragment of Killin as cytostatic/cytotoxic element, a cell-penetrating peptide, an MMP-2 cleavage site for specific activation, and XTEN for long blood circulation and deactivation of Killin. One of three sequence variants was efficiently expressed in E. coli. As typical for XTEN, it allowed efficient purification of the E. coli lysate by a heat step (10 min 75°C) and subsequent anion exchange chromatography using XTEN as purification tag. After 24 h XTEN-Killin reduced the number of viable cells of HT-1080 tumor cell line to 3.8 ±2.0% (p<0.001) compared to untreated controls. In contrast, liver derived non-tumor cells (BRL3A) did not show significant changes in viability. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of completely producing a complex protease-activatable, potentially long-circulating cytostatic/cytotoxic prodrug in E. coli—a concept that could lead to efficient production of highly multifunctional drugs in the future.