Mechanistic Characterization of the Potency of THIOMAB Antibody–Drug Conjugates Targeting Staphylococcus aureus and ETbR-Expressing Tumor Cells Using Quantitative LC-MS/MS Analysis of Intracellular Drug Accumulation

THIOMAB drug conjugate (TDC) technology provides site-specific conjugation of linker drugs to antibodies, allowing for targeted delivery of the payload. While a direct measurement of TDC cytotoxic potency allows efficient screening and confirmation that new drugs conjugated to antibodies result in proper processing in cells, additional mechanistic characterization is often needed to provide information-rich data to guide further optimization of TDC design. For example, a quantitative understanding of how TDCs are processed intracellularly can help determine which processing step is impacting payload delivery and thereby inform the basis of the TDC efficacy. Here, we measure the cellular accumulation of two different TDC drug payloads: MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) pathway inhibitor targeting ETbR-expressing tumor cells and an antibiotic active against Staphylococcus aureus with an in vitro cell-based drug release LC-MS/MS assay in a 96-well format. This assay allowed us to correlate the cellular potency of each unconjugated molecule with the amount of payload that accumulated inside the cell. In the case of the pathway inhibitor drug, the biochemical characterization of TDC processing by cathepsin B and purified human liver enzyme extract demonstrated a correlation between the efficiency of the linker drug cleavage and intracellular payload accumulation. For the antibody–antibiotic conjugate, kinetic analysis of intracellular free drug retention provided valuable insight into the chemistry modifications needed for an efficient TDC. Taken together, we demonstrated the utility of quantitative LC-MS/MS assays as one tool in guiding the design of more effective TDCs via the mechanistic release characterization of two distinct payloads.