Immunotoxins and cancer therapy

In the past decade,an increased amount of clinicallyloriented research involving immunotoxins has been published. Immunotoxins are a group of artificially-made cytotoxic molecules targeting cancer cells.These molecules composed of a targeting moiety,such as a ligand or an antibody,linked to toxin moiety,which is a toxin with either truncated or deleted cell-binding domain that prevents it from binding to normal cells.Immunotoxins can be divided into two categories:chemically conjugated immunotoxins and recombinant ones.The immunotoxins of the first category have shown limited efficacy in clinical trials in patients with hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.Within the last few years,single-chain immunotoxins provide enhanced therapeutic efficacy over conjugated forms and result in improved antitumor activity.In this review,we briefly illustrate the design of the immunotoxins and their applications in clinical trials.Cellular & Molecular Immunology.2005;2(2):106-112.