The Internalization and Therapeutic Activity of Antibody Drug Conjugates

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have promising potential as an effective therapeutic agent for various cancer therapies. Antigen-mediated internalization induces the delivery of ADCs into cancer cells, resulting in activation of the attached cytotoxic agents. The internalization and internalization efficiency of ADC are critical for its anti-cancer efficacy. How to verify the internalization and the internalization efficiency of ADCs could be very useful to identify appropriate antibody candidates with internalization characteristics favorable for ADCs. This chapter describes the experiments for evaluating internalization and strategies to improve internalization efficiency of ADCs, which would benefit for the identification and development of next generation ADCs in the future.