Comparative Preclinical Evaluation of HER2-Targeting ABD-Fused Affibody(®) Molecules (177)Lu-ABY-271 and (177)Lu-ABY-027: Impact of DOTA Position on ABD Domain

Radiolabeled Affibody-based targeting agent (177)Lu-ABY-027, a fusion of an anti-HER2 Affibody molecule with albumin binding domain (ABD) site-specifically labeled at the C-terminus, has demonstrated a promising biodistribution profile in mice; binding of the construct to albumin prevents glomerular filtration and significantly reduces renal uptake. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that site-specific positioning of the chelator at helix 1 of ABD, at a maximum distance from the albumin binding site, would further increase the strength of binding to albumin and decrease the renal uptake. The new construct, ABY-271 with DOTA conjugated at the back of ABD, has been labelled with (177)Lu. Targeting properties of (177)Lu-ABY-271 and (177)Lu-ABY-027 were compared directly. (177)Lu-ABY-271 specifically accumulated in SKOV-3 xenografts in mice. The tumor uptake of (177)Lu-ABY-271 exceeded uptake in any other organ 24 h and later after injection. However, the renal uptake of (177)Lu-ABY-271 was two-fold higher than the uptake of (177)Lu-ABY-027. Thus, the placement of chelator on helix 1 of ABD does not provide desirable reduction of renal uptake. To conclude, minimal modification of the design of Affibody molecules has a strong effect on biodistribution, which cannot be predicted a priori. This necessitates extensive structure-properties relationship studies to find an optimal design of Affibody-based targeting agents for therapy.