Uncialamycin-based antibody–drug conjugates: Unique enediyne ADCs exhibiting bystander killing effect
K. C. Nicolaou, Stephan Rigol, Emmanuel N. Pitsinos, Dipendu Das, Yong Lu, Subhrajit Rout, Alexander Schammel, Dane Holte, Baiwei Lin, Christine Gu, Hetal Sarvaiya, Jose Trinidad, Nicole Barbour, Amanda Valdiosera, Joseph Sandoval, Christina Lee, Monette Aujay, Hanan Fernando, Anukriti Dhar, Holger Karsunky, Nicole Taylor, Marybeth A. Pysz, Julia Gavrilyuk
Abstract
-acetyl calicheamicin [Formula: see text], have a proven success track record. However, they pose a significant synthetic challenge in the development and optimization of linker drugs. We have recently reported a streamlined total synthesis of uncialamycin, another representative of the enediyne class of compounds, with compelling synthetic accessibility. Here we report the synthesis and evaluation of uncialamycin ADCs featuring a variety of cleavable and noncleavable linkers. We have discovered that uncialamycin ADCs display a strong bystander killing effect and are highly selective and cytotoxic in vitro and in vivo.