Background
Immunotherapy is one of the fastest growing fields in medical research. The success in drug development is partly due to the capability of antibodies to bind their protein targets with high specificity and affinity. Since IgG antibodies have two identical paratopes for the same epitope, they can bind repetitive targets (e.g. oligomeric Aβ) at multiple sites (epitopes). As the number of connected binding sites on one target increases, the rate of dissociation from the target will decrease. This effect is called avidity, which is defined as the unified strength of multiple interactions between an antibody and its target [
1,
2]. The more engaged binding sites, the greater the avidity. For example, IgM antibodies with 10 binding sites can have higher avidity than IgG antibodies, when multiple epitopes on a target are bound simultaneously. It has been shown that antibodies modified into a tetravalent form have higher avidity than bivalent antibodies [
3].
Protein aggregation is one of the major pathological hallmarks of several diseases. In Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of neurodegenerative disorders, amyloid beta (Aβ) forms aggregates, which cause neuronal death and lead to impaired memory [
4]. Aggregation of the monomeric Aβ proceeds through the formation of intermediate soluble oligomers and protofibrils, and eventually lead to formation of insoluble fibrils and plaques, mainly located in the extracellular space in the brain [
5‐
8]. The latter are easily visible in the post-mortem brains from AD patients when labeled with amyloid-binding dyes [
9]. However, several studies have shown that the soluble aggregated species (oligomers and protofibrils) are the most toxic forms, since they correlate better with clinical symptoms and have been shown to be the main species responsible for the associated neuronal and synaptic death [
7,
10‐
12].
Passive immunization with anti-Aβ antibodies as a treatment strategy for AD has been tested in numerous clinical trials [
13,
14]. One of the main challenges with AD immunotherapy is to create an antibody with strong binding to toxic species of Aβ, and less binding to the potentially physiologically relevant monomers or insoluble fibrils. The monomers may exert some neuroprotective effects [
15,
16]. It is debated which aggregated species of Aβ are most harmful. Some studies suggest soluble protofibrils [
17], while others suggest smaller oligomers [
10,
18] or dimers [
19,
20]. A general conclusion is that soluble Aβ aggregates are toxic to the cells and hence a relevant target. Smaller oligomers of Aβ are more likely to enter neurons and thereby exert their neurotoxic effects, while larger aggregates like protofibrils might have more indirect toxic effects by for example enhancing neuroinflammation [
21].
The binding-selectivity of anti-Aβ antibodies to aggregated species of Aβ over monomers is mainly dependent on avidity. Several antibodies can strongly bind to Aβ aggregates while having a low affinity to monomers via the avidity effect. Examples of such binders include IgM antibodies with 10 binding sites [
22,
23], divalent binders [
24] and antibodies reaching phase 3 clinical trials like aducanumab [
25] and lecanemab (BAN2401) [
26,
27]. Increasing the valency of antibodies could potentially increase the interaction time with the targeted antigen if the additional binding sites are able to bind to the target simultaneously. If one paratope is dissociated, there will still be a second paratope in association with the target, which could also increase the chance of the dissociated paratope to bind again to the target [
2]. Efforts have been made to increase the valency of antibodies through designing multimeric formats accompanied with a significant decrease in the dissociation rate constants [
28,
29]. However, despite being highly flexible in structure [
30], IgG antibodies may not have an avidity effect to small Aβ oligomers [
31] due to the spatial distance between the two paratopes of IgG antibodies, which has been previously determined to be around 100 Å [
32]. As illustrated in Additional file
1: Fig. S1, the complementarity-determining regions of an IgG4 antibody (PDB ID 5DK3) in its crystal structure are much larger than a 12-mer Aβ (PDB ID 2BEG). However, different subclasses of IgG antibodies have different degrees of flexibility, which should be considered when looking at the interactions of specific antibodies with Aβ [
33].
In this study, we set out to develop new functional multivalent antibodies to enhance antibody avidity to soluble aggregates of Aβ, particularly smaller oligomers, while maintaining a weak binding to monomers. For this reason, we have designed and recombinantly produced antibody formats based on an Aβ protofibril antibody [
26,
27]. This antibody has strong binding to Aβ protofibrils, moderate binding to insoluble fibrils and weak binding to monomers [
34‐
36]. In this study, we introduced new designs involving engineering additional binding domains (e.g. single-chain fragment variable [scFv]) on the variable domains (binding sites) of the parental antibody, generating tetra- and hexavalent antibodies, and tested their binding to different species of Aβ aggregates and protective effects on cells.
Materials and methods
Antibody cloning, expression and purification
The heavy and light chains of the different antibodies were cloned into two separate pcDNA3.4 vectors (GeneArt, Regensburg, Germany). The recombinant proteins were expressed as described previously [
37]. Briefly, Expi293 cells were transfected with 70% light chain plasmids and 30% heavy chain plasmids using polyethyleneimine as a transfection agent. Seven to 12 days after transfection, the antibodies were purified using an Äkta start system with protein G columns (Cytiva, Uppsala, Sweden). Acetic acid at 0.7% was used as an elution buffer, and absorbance at 280 nm was used to measure the concentrations of purified antibodies. Buffer was exchanged to phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) using Zeba desalting columns (Pierce biotech, Rockford, IL) and the antibodies were stored at -80 °C until further application.
SDS-PAGE analysis
SDS-PAGE analysis was performed to confirm the purity and the size of the purified proteins. The antibodies were mixed with LDS sample buffer (Invitrogen, Waltham, MA) and loaded onto 4%–12% Bis–Tris protein gels (Invitrogen, Waltham, MA) without adding reducing agents. The gel was then stained with PAGE blue protein solution (Thermo Scientific, Waltham, MA) using a pre-stained protein marker (LI-COR biosciences, Bad Homburg, Germany) as a molecular weight standard.
Thermal shift assay
The structural stability of the generated antibodies under thermal stress was evaluated using Tycho nt.6 instrument (NanoTemper Technologies, München, Germany). Equimolar concentrations of the antibodies were heated in a glass capillary where the temperature increased linearly from 35 °C to 95 °C. Fluorescence intensities at 330 nm and 350 nm were recorded, corresponding to tryptophan fluorescence. The assay was performed under three conditions: immediately after thawing the antibodies, following 2-h incubation at 37 °C and following 72-h incubation at 37 °C.
Labelling of the antibodies with Iodine-125
The recombinant antibodies were labelled with iodine-125 using Chloramine-T as described previously [
38]. Briefly, equal amounts of RmAb158 (molecular weight [MW] 150 kDa), Tetra-RmAb158 (MW 200 kDa) and Hexa-RmAb158 (MW 250 kDa) were mixed with the iodine-125 stock solution (Perkin Elmer Inc, Waltham, MA) and 1 mg/ml of Chloramine-T (Sigma Aldrich, Stockholm, Sweden) in PBS. After 90 s, the reaction was stopped by addition of 1 mg/ml sodium meta-bisulphite (Sigma Aldrich, Stockholm, Sweden). Free and unbound iodine was removed from the labelled antibodies using Zeba mini desalting columns having a MW cut-off of 7 kDa (Pierce biotech, Rockford, IL) and the antibodies were eluted in PBS.
Real-time interaction analysis with LigandTracer
The binding properties of the antibodies to protofibrils were studied using LigandTracer Grey (Ridgeview Instruments AB, Uppsala, Sweden). Briefly, a Petri dish was coated with protofibrils in a defined (target) area and placed on a tilted, rotating support. The area opposite to the target area was defined as the background area. The LigandTracer Grey has a low-energy gamma detector mounted above the upper part of the dish. When the buffer containing radio-labeled antibodies was added to the dish, the inclination ensures that the liquid was mainly in the lower part of the dish outside the detection area. During each full rotation, the decay corrected signals from the target and the background areas were recorded for 30 s each. Each recording was delayed for 5 s to allow the buffer to drain from the area being detected. The background signal was subtracted from the target signal to represent specific binding of labeled antibodies to protofibrils. To this end, Petri-dishes (Corning Inc., Corning, NY) were coated overnight at 4 °C with 300 μl of 500 nM Aβ1-42 protofibrils, prepared as described previously [
31]. The dishes were blocked with 5% BSA in 1 × PBS for 2 h at room temperature (RT). To establish the affinity and kinetics of the interaction processes, protofibrils were incubated with two antibody concentrations (0.3 and 1 nM in 2 ml of 0.1% BSA/PBS) for 2.5 h and 3 h, respectively. After a total incubation of 5.5 h, the dissociation measurement was initiated by removing the antibody-containing solution and adding 3 ml of 0.1% BSA/PBS buffer to the dish. Data evaluation was performed using TraceDrawer software (Ridgeview Instruments AB, Uppsala, Sweden). The labelling procedure was performed roughly two hours before starting the first incubation.
Surface plasmon resonance (SPR)
The binding strength of the recombinant antibodies to Aβ protofibrils and monomers was further investigated by SPR using Biacore 8 K instrument (Cytiva, Uppsala, Sweden). Soluble Aβ1-42 protofibrils, prepared as described previously [
31], were immobilized by amine coupling (NHS/EDC, GE kit #BR100633) on a biacore CM5 sensor chip (Cytiva, Uppsala, Sweden). Three-fold dilution series of the recombinant antibodies (ranging from 100 to 1.23 nM) in PBS-P+ buffer (pH 7.4) (Cytiva, Uppsala, Sweden) were injected using a single cycle kinetic method at a flow rate of 30 μl/min with an association phase of 120 s, followed by a dissociation phase of 7200 s. Injection of buffer was used as a blank control. The binding data were fitted to a 1:1 kinetic model using Biacore Insight Evaluation. The dissociation rate constant was calculated as an average value from 2–5 measurements. Surfaces were regenerated using 3 M MgCl
2 between cycles. For binding to monomers, the recombinant antibodies were immobilized on the mentioned chips at a fixed concentration of 1 μg/ml. A single cycle kinetic method was used to inject a two-fold dilution series of Aβ1-40 monomers (ranging from 4000 to 250 nM) (Bachem, H-1194, Bubendorf, Switzerland). The steady-state kinetic model was used for analysis.
Indirect ELISA to demonstrate the avidity of RmAb158 to Aβ protofibrils
Ninety-six-well half-area plates (Corning Inc., Corning, NY) were coated overnight with Aβ1-42 protofibrils (45 ng/well), prepared as described previously [
31], at 4 °C. The plates were blocked the next day with 1% BSA in PBS for 2 h at RT, followed by incubation for an additional 2 h at RT with serial dilutions of RmAb158 (with a starting concentration of 10 nM) and Fab fragment of RmAb158 (with a starting concentration of 1.25 μM). A polyclonal horse-radish peroxidase (HRP)-conjugated anti-mouse IgG (Sigma-Aldrich, Stockholm, Sweden) was added to the plates and incubated for 1 h at RT, followed by signal development with K-blue aqueous TMB (Neogen Corp, Lexington, KY). Absorbance was measured at 450 nm using a FLUOstar Omega microplate reader (BMG Labtech, Ortenberg, Germany).
Generation of cross-linked stabilized Aβ1-42 aggregates and separation through size exclusion chromatography (SEC)
Synthetic Aβ1-42 (Bachem, Bubendorf, Switzerland) was dissolved in 10 mM NaOH supplemented with 0.005% Tween-20 to a final concentration of 100 µM and stored in aliquots at − 80 °C. For generation of Aβ1-42 aggregates, the stock dilution was diluted in 2 × PBS, pH 7.4, to a final concentration of 50 µM. The 50 µM solution was incubated without shaking for 15 min at 37 °C to generate Aβ1-42 aggregates. For stabilization of the metastable Aβ1-42 aggregates, the aggregates were stabilized covalently by the Photo-Induced Cross-linking of Unmodified Proteins (PICUP) method according to a protocol described previously [
39]. Mechanistically, PICUP involves photo-oxidation of Ru3 + in a tris(bipyridyl)Ru (II) complex (RuBpy) to Ru3 + by irradiation with visible light in the presence of an electron acceptor. Briefly, a typical PICUP reaction was performed in a 50 µl reaction volume. To the 50 µM Aβ1-42 aggregate solution, 5 µl of RuBpy (2.5 mM dissolved in water) followed by 5 µl of ammonium persulfate (APS, 10% (
w/
v) in water) was added by pipetting (final concentrations of RuBpy and APS in the reaction mixture were 0.25 mM and 1%, respectively). The solution was quickly irradiated for 5 s under a general light bulb on the lab bench. Immediately after irradiation, the reaction was quenched by separating the reaction mixture with Zeba spin desalting column 7 k MWCO equilibrated with PBS supplemented with 0.005% Tween-20 (Thermofisher, Waltham, MA). The PICUP stabilized Aβ1-42 aggregates were heat-treated for 5 min at 95 °C prior to separation of Aβ1-42 aggregates by SEC. A Superdex 200 Increase 3.2/300 column (Cytiva, Uppsala, Sweden) was used for size separation of the first batch of Aβ1-42 aggregates (Fig.
6) on a Merck Hitachi D-700 HPLC LaChrom system. The second batch of Aβ1-42 aggregates (Additional file
1: Fig. S3a) was separated using a Superdex 75 column (Cytiva, Uppsala, Sweden). The samples were eluted with PBS-Tween, pH 7.4 (50 mM sodium phosphate, 0.15 M NaCl, 0.1% Tween-20, pH 7.4) at a flow rate of 0.08 ml/min and data obtained at 214 nm. Before sample injection, the quenched reaction mixture was mixed 1:1 with a 2 × mobile-phase buffer (100 mM sodium phosphate, 0.3 M NaCl, 0.2% Tween-20, pH 7.4). Fractions were collected every two minutes and stored at − 20 °C for further analysis. To estimate the size of the separated PICUP Aβ1-42 fractions, western blot analysis was performed. Samples were mixed with Laemlli sample buffer containing reducing agent and heated for 5 min at 95 °C. The denaturated samples were loaded on NuPAGE 12% Bis–Tris gels (Thermofisher, Waltham, MA), and transferred onto nitrocellulose membranes (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA). The membranes were blocked with 5% dry milk (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA) in TBS-Tween buffer, followed by incubation with rabbit anti-Aβ42 antibody (Bioarctic AB, Stockholm, Sweden).
Sandwich ELISA to check the binding strength to cross-linked Aβ1-42 aggregates and α-synuclein aggregates
The generated antibodies were tested with sandwich ELISA to establish their binding strength to different sizes of the generated cross-linked Aβ1-42 aggregates using the N-terminal specific mouse monoclonal antibody 82E1 (IBL/Tecan Trading AG, Mannedorf, Switzerland) as a positive control. Ninety-six-well half-area plates (Corning Inc., Corning, NY) were coated overnight with 1 μg/ml of the rabbit polyclonal C-terminal-specific Aβ1-42 antibody (Invitrogen, Waltham, MA) at 4 °C. On the next day, the plates were blocked with 1% BSA in PBS for 2 h at RT and incubated with 250 pM of the generated cross-linked Aβ1-42 aggregates of different sizes for another 2 h. Serial dilutions of the recombinant antibodies were added to the plates and incubated for 2 h at RT, followed by detection for 1 h at RT with HRP-conjugated anti-mouse IgG antibody (Sigma Aldrich, Stockholm, Sweden). Signals were developed with K-blue aqueous TMB (Neogen Corp, Lexington, KY) and the absorbance was measured at 450 nm using a FLUOstar Omega microplate reader (BMG Labtech, Ortenberg, Germany). The wells were washed with ELISA washing buffer (PBS with 0.05% Tween-20) between each step. All serial dilutions were made with ELISA incubation buffer (PBS with 0.1% BSA and 0.05% Tween-20). The absorbance of the blank (no addition of recombinant antibodies) was subtracted from the absorbance of the samples. For α-synuclein sandwich ELISA, plates were coated overnight with 1 μg/ml of antibody MJFR-14–6-4–2 (Abcam, Cambridge, United Kingdom) at 4 °C. Following block with 1% BSA in PBS for 2 h at RT, α-synuclein oligomers, prepared as described previously [
40], were added at a final concentration of 10 nM and the plates were further incubated for 2 h at RT. Serial dilutions of the recombinant antibodies (RmAb158, Tetra-RmAb158 and Hexa-RmAb158) were added to the plate and incubated for 2 h at RT. The α-synuclein antibody (clone SynO2, recombinantly produced in the lab) was used as a positive control [
41]. The signals were developed and detected as described above.
Inhibition ELISA to discriminate the binding between Aβ monomers, oligomers, protofibrils and fibrils
Inhibition ELISA was performed as described previously [
34]. Briefly, 96-well half-area plates (Corning Inc., Corning, NY) were coated overnight with 45 ng/well of Aβ1-42 protofibrils at 4 °C followed by blocking with 1% BSA in PBS for 2 h at RT. Serial dilutions of sonicated Aβ1-42 insoluble fibrils, prepared as described previously [
31], large cross-linked Aβ1-42 protofibrils (fraction 1 in SEC chromatogram, Fig.
6), cross-linked Aβ1-42 oligomers (fractions 3 and 4 in SEC chromatogram, Fig.
6) and Aβ1-40 monomers (Bachem, Bubendorf, Switzerland) were pre-incubated in a non-binding 96-well plate with HexaRmAb158 at a fixed concentration of 250 pM. After 1.5-h incubation, the mixtures were transferred to the Aβ protofibril-coated plates and further incubated for 15 min at RT. The plates were washed between the steps and the signal was developed and detected as described above.
Cell culture and MTT assay
The mouse neuroblastoma Neuro2a cell line was obtained from ATCC (Manassas, VA) and grown in Minimum Essential Medium (Gibco, Carlsbad, CA) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (Gibco, Carlsbad, CA) at 37 °C with 5% CO2. The cells were plated in a 96-well plate (Sarstedt cells + , Numbrecht, Germany) at a density of 5000 cells in 100 µl complete medium per well. To eliminate the effect of serum, the cells were starved 24 h prior to the addition of Aβ/antibody mixtures by changing to a serum-free medium. Cells were then treated with a heterogenous mixture of cross-linked Aβ1-42 aggregates (the sample before being passed through SEC, final concentration 500 nM) either alone or in combination with the antibodies (final concentration 150 nM). Cells incubated at standard conditions for 24 h with PBS were used as a negative control and with 0.005% H2O2 as a positive control. After the mentioned incubation time, the treatment medium was discarded and 50 μl serum-free medium plus 50 μl MTT reagent (Abcam, Cambridge, United Kingdom) was added in each well and incubated for 3 h at standard conditions, which lead to the formation of formazin proportional to how many cells that are alive. To solubilize the formazin product, MTT solvent (Abcam, Cambridge, United Kingdom) was added and the plates were incubated in the dark for 15 min while shaking. The absorbance was measured at 590 nm using a FLUOstar Omega microplate reader (BMG Labtech, Ortenberg, Germany). Data were obtained from two repetitive experiments where five to six replicates were used for each condition and the absorbance of the blank (cell medium only) was subtracted from the absorbance of the samples.
Discussion
Passive immunotherapies using monoclonal antibodies are in ongoing clinical trials for the treatment of AD. Some of these trials have been discontinued due to the lack of efficacy in slowing cognitive impairment [
49‐
51]. A high incidence of adverse events such as amyloid-related imaging abnormalities with edema (ARIA-E), possibly caused by binding to fibrils in the vessel walls, have been seen in some of the trials [
52,
53].
The aim of the current study was to enhance the avidity of monoclonal antibodies through the design of multivalent antibody formats and investigate their binding strength to soluble aggregated species of Aβ. These properties are desired because of the high cytotoxicity of the intermediate soluble species of Aβ [
10,
12,
54]. In addition, increasing the avidity will also decrease the rate of dissociation from the soluble Aβ aggregates.
To this end, we have designed, produced and evaluated binding characteristics of multivalent antibodies to different aggregated Aβ species, but also to physiologically abundant monomers. The designs were based on RmAb158, an antibody that has previously been shown to have high binding strength to protofibrils due to avidity [
31,
34]. The humanized version of RmAb158, lecanemab (BAN2401), is currently in a phase 3 clinical trial with 1795 participating patients with early and prodromal AD. In a phase 2b trial including 856 patients with AD, lecanemab (BAN2401) demonstrated a remarkable biological activity in lowering Aβ levels in the brain with a good safety profile [
55].
We utilized the SPR and LigandTracer techniques to compare the binding of the antibody constructs to protofibrils, since these technologies can establish the affinity and avidity without the necessity of reaching equilibrium in the binding process as with ELISA. For a high avidity binding, as displayed by Hexa-RmAb158 to Aβ protofibrils, 95% of the equilibrium binding will only, theoretically, be reached after incubation for roughly 17 days when having a concentration similar to the apparent affinity for the interaction. Required incubation times are even longer for lower concentrations. The obtained results from both methods revealed a lower rate of dissociation with Hexa-RmAb158, which showed a slower dissociation from Aβ protofibrils when compared to RmAb158 (Figs.
4,
5). This can be explained by the additional binding domains of Hexa-RmAb158 that provide a higher number of antigen–antibody interaction sites. If one of the paratopes dissociates from its interaction site, there are additional paratopes that are still associated with the target in the case of Hexa-RmAb158. In comparison, Tetra-Rmab158 will have fewer available binding sites, and RmAb158 has only one binding site available. Therefore, a complete dissociation of the hexavalent antibody from its target requires very long times. The dissociation rates measured in the SPR are faster than those from the LigandTracer, which could be due to the longer incubation periods enabling more time for multivalent binding and how the protofibrils are connected to the surface. In LigandTracer, unmodified protofibrils are bound directly to the plate, while in the SPR, the protofibrils are bound to the sensorchip with amine coupling. Since the N-terminal end of Aβ1-42 is the epitope for mAb158 [
31], it is likely that this is the cause for the weaker binding detected in the SPR, but the relative difference in avidity should still be rather correct. By comparing the measured dissociation process and the one estimated by the 1:1 fit in SPR, it can be seen that the actual dissociation is more heterogeneous with a fraction that dissociates more rapidly, leaving more stably bound fraction behind that dissociates more slowly. This heterogeneity might be related to a variation in multivalent binding on the SPR sensorchip, where some antibodies do not manage to bind with all possible binding sites. The advantage of real-time interaction analysis with LigandTracer over SPR is that it allows monitoring of binding to coated layer of Aβ protofibrils while having longer incubation times to allow reaching of a binding equilibrium.
One of the complications in designing Aβ oligomer antibodies is the cross-reactivity with insoluble fibrils and monomers. Several antibodies have been designed to target Aβ oligomers, but they have been shown to also bind to fibrillar and monomeric species. Strong binding of antibodies to Aβ fibrils is likely to be associated with an increased risk of ARIA-E, which is a frequently observed adverse event in AD clinical trials with monoclonal antibodies [
56]. In addition, the monomeric Aβ might play a physiological role and exist in higher amounts than oligomers [
15,
57]. Binding to Aβ monomers in the periphery could also interfere with the ability of the antibodies to reach their intra-brain target. Therefore, antibodies that selectively bind to the oligomers and protofibrils, with low binding to fibrils and monomers, are desired. Here, we showed with inhibition ELISA that the Hexa-RmAb158 has a much stronger binding to the oligomers and protofibrils, which is ~ 200 times stronger than its binding to the insoluble fibrils, and 800 times stronger than its binding to the monomers. This has previously been demonstrated with mAb158 as well using similar inhibition ELISA setup [
31,
35]. Furthermore, our ELISA experiments displayed no binding of Hexa-RmAb158 and related antibodies to α-synuclein aggregates, further confirming the previous report of no binding of the parental mAb158 antibody to protein aggregates other than Aβ [
31]. This suggests that binding of Hexa-RmAb158 is specific to the N-terminal of Aβ and not directed towards a structural element common for different amyloidogenic protein aggregates. Being able to strongly bind the soluble oligomeric aggregates of Aβ could be of therapeutic benefit, since it has been shown that the soluble Aβ aggregates are toxic to neurons and associated with enhanced release of inflammatory cytokines [
58,
59]. This can be explained by their colocalization with several pre- and post-synaptic markers, faster induction of apoptotic changes and activation of the mitochondrial death pathway. In addition, previous research has shown that the small soluble Aβ1-42 aggregates have a higher permeability to cell membranes [
21]. In our study, Hexa-RmAb158 was efficient in reducing cell metabolism impairment caused by Aβ of different sizes (Fig.
10a), which could be attributed to the selectivity and low dissociation rates of this antibody to the soluble toxic aggregates of Aβ.
Our approach to designing multivalent antibodies could also be applied for other diseases caused by aggregated proteins or repetitive targets. Multivalent antibody designs could provide higher chances for their paratopes to rebind to their targets with decreased dissociation rates, which in turn, could aid in keeping of antibodies in areas around the target. Strong and continuous occupancy of targets could be of particular importance in cancer immunotherapy, where studies have displayed heterogenous and non-tumor specific distribution of antibodies [
1]. It is however worth mentioning that enhancing the avidity of antibodies is also dependent on the nature and the surface size of the targeted antigen.
Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.