Yeast-based production platform for potent and stable heavy chain-only antibodies

Abstract

AbstractMonoclonal antibodies are the leading drug of the biopharmaceutical market because of their high specificity and tolerability, but the current CHO-based manufacturing platform remains expensive and time-consuming leading to limited accessibility, especially in the case of diseases with high incidence and pandemics. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an alternative production system.In this study, we present a rapid and cost-effective microbial platform for heavy chain-only antibodies (VHH-Fc) in the methylotrophic yeastKomagataella phaffii(akaPichia pastoris). We demonstrate the potential of this platform using a simplified single-gene VHH-Fc fusion construct instead of the conventional monoclonal antibody format, as this is more easily expressed inPichia pastoris. We demonstrate that thePichia-produced VHH-Fc fusion construct is stable and that aPichia-produced VHH-Fc directed against the SARS-CoV-2 spike has potent SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing activityin vitroandin vivo. We expect that this platform will pave the way towards faster and cheaper development and production of broadly neutralizing single-chain antibodies in yeast.