Bispecific antibody-antigen complex structures reveal activity enhancement by domain rearrangement.
Sato, K., Uehara, S., Tsugita, A., Ishii, M., Ishiyama, S., Maejima, A., Nakahara, I., Nazuka, M., Matsui, T., Christos, G., Yokoyama, T., Kumagai, I., Makabe, K., Asano, R., Tanaka, Y.(2025) Cell Rep 44: 115965-115965
- PubMed: 40664209 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115965
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
9IP7, 9IP8, 9IP9, 9IPA, 9IPB, 9IPC, 9IPD, 9IPE - PubMed Abstract: 
Bispecific antibodies (BsAbs) have been developed as anti-cancer drugs that accumulate activated T cells on cancer cells by bridging the antigens present in each cell. Ex3 is a diabody-type BsAb composed of an anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antibody and an anti-CD3 antibody. In the design of Ex3, the LH-type domain order (Ex3LH) is shown to have more than 100-fold greater anti-cancer activity than the HL-type domain order (Ex3HL). To understand this phenomenon of activity enhancement by domain-order rearrangement, we report here cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) structures of both Ex3HL and Ex3LH in complex with EGFR and CD3. A structural comparison of the HL and LH types reveals that the domain rearrangement leads to drastic structural changes and that the avoidance of steric hindrance by a favorable bridging angle on the cell surface is the fundamental mechanism for this activity enhancement.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Miyagi 980-8577, Japan.