Vienna, Austria: – Recombinant proteins specialist CDMO enGenes Biotech GmbH (enGenes) has led a new study investigating potential oncology application of both subunit versions of its newly developed clickable Shiga Toxin B (STxB).
The study ‘Clickable Shiga Toxin B Subunit for Drug Delivery in Cancer Therapy’ has been submitted for publication by the American Chemical Society scientific journal ACS Omega.
The research team was led by senior enGenes scientist Dr Natalia Danielewicz and included two other colleagues from the Department of Biotechnology at Vienna’s University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Birgit Wiltschi and Gerald Striedner. They were joined by researchers from the Faculty of Biology at Freiburg University led by senior scientist Francesca Rosato and included two other colleagues Jana Tomisch and Jonas Gräber, all supervised by Winfried Römer with enGenes CEO Juergen Mairhofer as the corresponding author.
Optimised for click chemistry
Inspired by increasing focus on click chemistry receptor-mediated drug delivery in the treatment of cancer, enGenes recently presented recombinant pathogen-derived STxB subunit for use as a carrier that detects the tumour-associated glycosphingolipid globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) receptors. It is presented in two versions: STxBwt as a ‘wild-type’ or STxBAzK that incorporates noncanonical amino acid azido lysine, both manufactured using a growth-decoupled Escherichia coli (E. coli)-based expression strain.
While drug conjugation via lysine or cysteine offers random drug attachment to carriers, click chemistry has the potential to improve the engineering of delivery systems as the site-specificity can eliminate interference with the active binding site of tumour ligands.
For more information follow https://www.pharmaceutical-networking.com/study-indicates-engenes-biotechs-shiga-toxin-b-subunits-useful-as-drug-carriers-in-cancer-therapy/
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