Site-specific PEGylation of a mutated-cysteine residue and its effect on tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL)

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is a promising antitumor agent that specifically induces apoptosis in broad-spectrum tumor cell lines, meanwhile leaving normal cells unaffected. Unfortunately, the clinical development of TRAIL was hampered, and could be attributed to its instability, bioavailability or poor delivery. Although N-terminal specific PEGylation provides a means to improve the pharmacokinetic and stability of TRAIL, it took a bit longer time to accomplish the PEGylation process than expected. We therefore designed another PEGylation approach, mutated Cys-SH site-specific PEGylation, to conjugate methoxypoly(ethylene glycol) maleimide (mPEG-MAL) with TRAIL (95–281) mutant N109C. Asn-109 was chosen as the PEGylated site for it is a potential N-linked glycosylation site. It was shown that ∼90% TRAIL mutant N109C could be PEGylated by mPEG-MAL within 40 min. And mPEG_MAL-N109C was revealed to possess superior in vitro stability and antitumor activity than N-terminal specifically PEGylated TRAIL (114–281) (mPEG_ALD-TRAIL_114–281). What's more, mPEG_MAL-N109C exhibited more therapeutic potentials than mPEG_ALD-TRAIL_114–281 in tumor xenograft model, benefitting from better drug delivery and bioavailability. These results have demonstrated mutated Cys-SH specific PEGylation is an alternative to site-specifically PEGylate TRAIL efficiently and effectively other than N-terminal specific PEGylation.