After the era of chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy, the ADC (antibody-drug conjugate) drugs, which couple cytotoxic drugs with targeted monoclonal antibodies, have opened the era of the fourth ladder of tumor drug therapy with excellent results. They have now become a new class of drugs in tumor treatment that cannot be ignored both domestically and internationally.
So, what are ADC drugs (antibody-drug conjugates)? Let me explain it to you with a picture.
ADC Drugs: A New Weapon for Precision Therapy
Researchers have found that in some tumors, there exists a special type of cancer cell, such as those that overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 or 3 (HER2/HER3), TROP2, etc., and these cancer cells spread and grow faster than other cancer cells.
Mechanism of Action of ADC Drugs
After entering the body, the antibody part of the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) binds to the targeted antigen on the surface of tumor cells, and the tumor cells will endocytose the ADC molecules. Some of them can bind to Fc receptors in the endosome, allowing part of the ADC to be transported to the cell surface and released extracellularly via FcRn-mediated transcytosis, while other ADC-antigen complexes enter the lysosome, where enzymes or the acidic environment can degrade the ADC, releasing cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs that damage DNA or prevent tumor cell division, thus killing the tumor cells.
Now, let’s take HER2 as an example to see the mechanism of action of ADC drugs.
ADC
Currently, ADC drugs show excellent clinical efficacy in breast cancer, gastric cancer, urothelial carcinoma, lung cancer, and hematological tumors, allowing us to see the potential of technological innovation to achieve drug property superimposition under the traditional paradigms of chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy, and to fully repurpose previously “useless” targets, leading to a new wave of drug breakthroughs, new hope, and new dawn!
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