Development and preclinical testing of a high-affinity single-chain antibody against (+)-methamphetamine

Chronic or excessive (+)-methamphetamine (METH) use often leads to addiction and toxicity to critical organs like the brain. With medical treatment as a goal, a novel single-chain variable fragment (scFv) against METH was engineered from anti-METH monoclonal antibody mAb6H4 (IgG, kappa light chain, K-d = 11 nM) and found to have similar ligand affinity (K-d = 10 nM) and specificity as mAb6H4. The anti-METH scFv (scFv6H4) was cloned, expressed in yeast, purified, and formulated as a naturally occurring mixture of monomer (similar to 75%) and dimer (similar to 25%). To test the in vivo efficacy of the scFv6H4, male Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 5) were implanted with 3-day s.c. osmotic pumps delivering 3.2 mg/kg/day METH. After reaching steady-state METH concentrations, an i.v. dose of scFv6H4 (36.5 mg/kg, equimolar to the METH body burden) was administered along with a [H-3] scFv6H4 tracer. Serum pharmacokinetic analysis of METH and [H-3] scFv6H4 showed that the scFv6H4 caused an immediate 65-fold increase in the METH concentrations and a 12-fold increase in the serum METH area under the concentration-time curve from 0 to 480 min after scFv6H4 administration. The scFv6H4 monomer was quickly cleared or converted to multivalent forms with an apparent t(1/2 lambda z) of 5.8 min. In contrast, the larger scFv6H4 multivalent forms (dimers, trimers, etc.) showed a much longer t(1/2 lambda z) (228 min), and the significantly increased METH serum molar concentrations correlated directly with scFv6H4 serum molar concentrations. Considered together, these data suggested that the scFv6H4 multimers (and not the monomer) were responsible for the prolonged redistribution of METH into the serum.