Site-Specific Conjugation Quantitation of a Cysteine-Conjugated Antibody-Drug Conjugate Using Stable Isotope Labeling Peptide Mapping LC-MS/MS Analysis

Drug-load (DL) characterization of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) is an important analytical task due to its designation as a critical quality attribute (CQA) affecting potency and stability. Intact and subunit liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analyses can determine global drug-to-antibody ratios (DARs) that correlate well with other orthogonal analytical methods; however, peptide mapping liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis has struggled to provide complementary site-specific quantitation of drug conjugation sites. The peptide mapping method described herein utilizes stable isotope labeling to accurately quantitate the site-specific conjugation levels of a cysteine-conjugated ADC to provide bottom-up DAR characterization in parallel with protein sequence and post-translational modification (PTM) characterization in one multi-attribute analytical method (MAM).

Automated summary

The characterization of drug-load in antibody-drug conjugates is a crucial analytical task. Different analytical methods can be employed to determine the drug-to-antibody ratios and quantify the site-specific conjugation levels. This method utilizes stable isotope labeling to accurately analyze the ADC and provides reliable results.