Fred Lee

Mr. Fred Lee


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

11Years (2016-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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25 July 2016 in Toxins
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
GKGilad Kaplan
Gilad Kaplan
FLFred Lee
Fred Lee
MOMasanori Onda
Masanori Onda
EKEmily Kolyvas
Emily Kolyvas
GBGaurav Bhardwaj
Gaurav Bhardwaj
Ira PastanIra Pastan
Ira Pastan
Recombinant immunotoxins (RITs) are fusions of an Fv-based targeting moiety and a toxin. Pseudomonas exotoxin A (PE) has been used to make several immunotoxins that have been evaluated in clinical trials. Immunogenicity of the bacterial toxin and off-target toxicity have limited the efficacy of these immunotoxins. To address these issues, we have previously made RITs in which the Fv is connected to domain III (PE24) by a furin cleavage site (FCS), thereby removing unneeded sequences of domain II. However, the PE24 containing RITs do not contain the naturally occurring disulfide bond around the furin cleavage sequence, because it was removed when domain II was deleted. This could potentially allow PE24 containing immunotoxins to be cleaved and inactivated before internalization by cell surface furin or other proteases in the blood stream or tumor microenvironment. Here, we describe five new RITs in which a disulfide bond is engineered to protect the FCS. The most active of these, SS1-Fab-DS3-PE24, shows a longer serum half-life than an RIT without the disulfide bond and has the same anti-tumor activity, despite being less cytotoxic in vitro. These results have significance for the production of de-immunized, low toxicity, PE24-based immunotoxins with a longer serum half-life.