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Abstract
The quadroma antibody represents the first attempt to produce a bispecific heterodimeric IgG antibody by somatic fusion of 2 hybridoma cells each expressing monoclonal antibodies with distinctive specificities. However, because of random heavy and light chain pairing, the desired functional bispecific antibody represents only a small fraction of the protein produced. Subsequently, the knobs-into-holes (KiH) approach was developed to enforce correct heavy chain heterodimerization. Assuming equimolar expression of 4 unmodified chains comprising 2 heavy and 2 light chains, the statistical distribution of all paired combinations can be calculated. With equimolar expression as the goal, we transfected HEK cells with 1:1:1:1 plasmid ratios and analyzed the protein A affinity-purified antibodies from the quadroma and KiH approaches qualitatively and quantitatively with regard to the estimated relative amounts of the products using electrospray quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Our results show that all expected species are formed, and that, within the methodological limits, the species distribution in the mixtures corresponds approximately to the statistical distribution.
Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest
No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
Acknowledgments
We thank Oksana Tyshchuk and Eileen Petzold for contributing to the sample characterization and Dr. Hans Koll for helpful discussions.