Drug Delivery System

1. Monoclonal Antibodies As
Drug Delivery System
Presented by
Nargis Ara
Ph. D Scholar (Pharmaceutics)
Faculty of Pharmacy
Integral University

2. Contents:
 Basic Concepts
 Need to Develop mAb
 mAb Production
 Drug Conjugate
 Advantages & Limitations
 References

3. Basic Concepts
 Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) are
identical immunoglobulins, generated
from a single B-cell clone or a single
hybridoma cell line.
 These antibodies recognize unique
epitopes (antigen determinants), or
binding sites, on a single antigen.

5. Need To Develop mAb
 In general naturally produced antibodies
are non-specific and heterogeneous in
nature.
 Thus there is a need for producing
monoclonal antibodies for different
antigens.

6. Monoclonal Antibodies Production
 Immunization
 Cell fusion
 Selection of
hybridoma
 Screening ,Cloning
and propagation
 Characterization and
storage

7. Drug Conjugate
 Immunotoxins:
Ex: diphtheria toxin, Ricin have been conjugated
to the tumor specific antibodies. A-chain is
cytotoxic and B-chain is non-specific. Hence B-
chain is removed and the toxin is conjugated to
tumor specific antibody. Thus we increase the
specificity of the toxins by using mAbs as active
drug targeting systems.
 Drug immunoconjugates:
Agents like chlorambucil, methotrexate and
doxorubicin are conjugated with tumor specific
antibodies.
Ex: doxorubicin-BR96 immunoconjugate for
Lewis antigen found on the surface of tumor cells.

8. Advantages & Limitations
Advantages
 They are homogenous in
nature.
 They are specific to a
particular antigen with a
particular epitope.
Limitations
 As they are specific to a
particular antigen, they
cannot distinguish
molecule as a whole.
 Some times they cannot
distinguish groups of
different molecules. Ex:-
presence of retro viruses
as a part of mammalian
chromosomes is not
distinguished.

9. References
 Joseph R. Robinson and Vincent H. L.
Lee Controlled Drug Delivery
 U. Satyanarayan and U. Chakrapani
Biotechnology