In this work we have generated cattle-derived chimeric ultralong CDR-H3 antibodies targeting tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) via immunization and yeast surface display. We identified one particular ultralong CDR-H3 paratope that potently neutralized TNF-α. Interestingly, grafting of the knob architecture onto a peripheral loop of the CH3 domain of the Fc part of an IgG1 resulted in the generation of a TNF-α neutralizing Fc (Fcknob) that did not show any potency loss compared with the parental chimeric IgG format. Eventually, grafting this knob onto the CH3 region of adalimumab enabled the engineering of a novel TNF-α targeting antibody architecture displaying augmented TNF-α inhibition.
Keywords: Fcknob; antibody display; antibody engineering; antibody valency; biparatopic antibody; bovine ultralong CDR-H3 antibody.
© 2024 the author(s), published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston.