Articles tagged ”Intact LC-MS”
FabRICATOR in Efficient Structural Characterization of mAbs
In contrast to small generic molecules, therapuetic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) exhibit inherent heterogeneity that may arise during production and formulation or due to the storage conditions. Therefore, it is essential to characterize the structural heterogeneity of mAbs with respect to properties including conformational changes, aggregation and post-translational modifications. In this work, Zhu et al. at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College present an integration strategy for structural characterization of mAbs by combining intact mass and middle-down analysis using only a high-resolution Q-TOF mass spectrometer. Read more »
Antibody Glycation Study using Intact LC-MS
A new study from Janssen by Mo et al, demonstrates the use of intact mass spectrometry to determine the levels of glycation on therapeutic antibodies. To perform the assay, the authors used IgGZERO for rapid removal of the Fc-glycans.
Glycation occurs when reducing sugars such as glucose, galactose or fructose, reacts with protein amino acids through the Maillard reaction, and results in attachment of sugars to the protein. For therapeutic antibodies, glycation not only increases the heterogeneity of the drug but may also affect safety and efficacy.
To study the level of glycation on antibodies, the authors used both intact mass of the reduced antibody and peptide mapping to find the +162 Da mass shift indicating an addition of a hexose sugar. The Fc-glycan of an antibody contain 0, 1 or 2 galactose sugars that also gives a mass shift of 162 Da. To specifically remove the Fc-glycans, the scientist used IgGZERO (EndoS) from Genovis. Using this enzymatic pretreatment, the authors could determine glycation levels using intact mass spectrometry.
The authors found the peptide mapping and the intact LC-MS to give correlating results but conclude: “intact LC- MS is a quicker and simpler method to quantitate the total glycation levels and is more useful for routine testing”(Mo et al. 2018).
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