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Background: ADAMTS-13, a plasma metalloprotease, cleaves von Willebrand factor. ADAMTS-13 activity appears to be regulated through allosteric inhibition by its distal C-terminus., Objectives: The objective of this study was to better understand how domain-domain interactions may affect ADAMTS-13 conformations and functions., Methods: We performed deuterium-hydrogen exchange plus mass spectrometry to assess the number and rate of deuterium incorporation into various peptides of full-length ADAMTS-13 and its truncated variants., Results: Under physiological conditions, a bimodal distribution of deuterium incorporation was detected in the peptides from metalloprotease (217-230 and 282-304), cysteine-rich (446-482), and CUB (for complement C1r/C1s, Uegf, Bmp1) domains (1185-1214, 1313-1330, 1341-1347, 1358-1378, and 1393-1407) of full-length recombinant ADAMTS-13, but not of truncated variants. These results suggest that the full-length ADAMTS-13 undergoes conformational changes. On removal of the middle and distal C-terminal domains, the number and rate of deuterium incorporation were increased in the peptides from cysteine-rich (445-467, 467-482, and 495-503) and spacer domains (621-642 and 655-654) but decreased in the peptides from metalloprotease (115-124, 217-230, and 274-281). Moreover, most peptides, except for 217-230 and 1357-1376, exhibited a pD-dependent deuterium incorporation in the full-length ADAMTS-13, but not in the truncated variant (eg, MDTCS or T5C). These results further suggest that the bimodal deuterium incorporation observed in the peptides from the full-length ADAMTS-13 is the result of potential impact from the middle to distal C-terminal domains. Surface plasmon resonance revealed the direct binding interactions between the distal and proximal domains of ADAMTS-13., Conclusion: Our results provide novel insight on how intramolecular interactions may affect conformations of ADAMTS-13, thus regulating its proteolytic functions., (© 2022 The Author(s).)

Due to significant safety tolerances on maximum levels of visible and sub-visible particles in parenterally dosed drug products like monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), particle formation rates must be determined during development and minimized. Agitation stress, encountered during transportation and manufacturing, increases particle formation rates in a protein and formulation dependent fashion in a phenomenon thought to be partially mediated by mAb adsorption to the continuously regenerating air-water interface that results from agitation. The goal of this study was to explore the structural dynamics of three mAbs with variable sensitivity to agitation to develop a mechanistic understanding of exactly what occurs at the air-water interface that leads to aggregation and particle formation. We observed preferential orientation at the interface and subsequent cooperative unfolding for the molecule which aggregates most extensively under agitation, and also that the magnitude of destabilization appears to scale with particle formation rates. We also show that polysorbate, a widely-used excipient in parenteral formulations to protect against particle formation, eliminates interface-induced destabilization. This study provides direct evidence that local unfolding events resulting from interface exposure precede particle formation and may play a causal role in the process., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interests The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) have been at the forefront in cancer therapy due to their target specificity. All the FDA approved ADCs are developed in lyophilized form to minimize instability associated with the linker that connects the cytotoxic drug and the antibody during shipping and storage. We present here solid-state hydrogen-deuterium exchange with mass spectrometric analysis (ssHDX-MS) as a tool to analyze protein structure and matrix interactions for formulations of an ADC with and without commonly used excipients. We compared results of the ssHDX-MS with accelerated stability results using size-exclusion chromatography and determined that the former technique was able to successfully identify the destabilizing effects of mannitol and polysorbate 80. In comparison, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy results were inconclusive. The agreement between ssHDX-MS and stressed stability studies supports the potential of ssHDX-MS as a method of predicting relative stability of different formulations., Competing Interests: Declarations of interest None., (Copyright © 2021 American Pharmacists Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Affinity chromatography is widely used for antibody purification in biopharmaceutical production. Although there is evidence suggesting that affinity chromatography might induce structural changes in antibodies, allosteric changes in structure have not been well-explored. Here, we used hydrogen exchange-mass spectrometry (HX-MS) to reveal conformational changes in the NIST mAb upon binding with a protein A (ProA) matrix. HX-MS measurements of NIST mAb bound to in-solution and resin forms of ProA revealed regions of the C H 2 and C H 3 domains with increased protection from HX upon ProA binding, consistent with the known ProA binding region. In-solution ProA experiments revealed regions in the F ab with increased HX uptake when the ProA:mAb molar ratio was increased to 2:1, suggesting an allosterically induced increase in backbone flexibility. Such effects were not observed with lower ProA concentration (1:1 molar ratio) or when ProA resin was used, suggesting some kind of change in binding mode. Since all pharmaceutical processes use ProA bound to resin, our results rule out reversible allosteric effects on the NIST mAb during interaction with resin ProA. However, irreversible effects cannot be ruled out since the NIST mAb was previously exposed to ProA during its original purification., Competing Interests: Declaration of interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests with the contents of this article., (Copyright © 2021 American Pharmacists Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Deamidation is an important degradation pathway for proteins. Estimating deamidation propensities is essential for predicting their long-term stability. However, predicting deamidation rates in folded proteins is challenging because higher-order structure has a significant and unpredictable effect on deamidation. Here, we investigated the correlation between amide hydrogen exchange (HX) and deamidation to assess the potential of using hydrogen exchange-mass spectrometry (HX-MS) to rapidly predict deamidation propensity. Maltose-binding protein and a structurally less stable mutant, W169G, were stored in the dark at pH 7.0 at 23 ± 2°C for 1 year. Deamidation at each asparagine site was measured using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry after trypsin digestion. Deamidation rates at each deamidation site were determined based on first-order kinetics. HX rates at the deamidation sites were determined before storage using the shortest peptic peptide containing each site using conventional bottom-up HX-MS at pD 7.0 at 25°C. We observed a power law correlation between deamidation half-life and HX half-life for the NG sites with measurable kinetics. For NA sites, slow deamidation was only observed at 2 sites located in rapidly exchanging regions. Our findings demonstrate that HX-MS can be used to reliably and rapidly rank deamidation propensity in folded proteins., (Copyright © 2019 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The interaction of water with cellulose stages many unresolved questions. Here 2 H MAS NMR and IR spectra recorded under carefully selected conditions in 1 H- 2 H exchanged, and re-exchanged, cellulose samples are presented. It is shown here, by a quantitative and robust approach, that only two of the three available hydroxyl groups on the surface of cellulose fibrils are exchanging their hydrogen with the surrounding water molecules. This finding is additionally verified and explained by MD simulations which demonstrate that the 1 HO(2) and 1 HO(6) hydroxyl groups of the constituting glucose units act as hydrogen-bond donors to water, while the 1 HO(3) groups behave exclusively as hydrogen-bond acceptors from water and donate hydrogen to their intra-chain neighbors O(5). We conclude that such a behavior makes the latter hydroxyl group unreactive to hydrogen exchange with water., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Conventional coupling of capillary electrophoresis with electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry typically relies on the use of a triaxial sheath-flow liquid interface to facilitate electrical contact and provide a stable electrospray. In this type of analysis, the use of additives in the sheath liquid itself can also be used to improve ionisation of analytes and even facilitate reactions between separation and detection steps (which we broadly term "sheath-flow chemistry"). In the present work, this concept is demonstrated using two types of sheath-flow reactions for CE coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF) MS detection. Sheath liquid compositions containing deuterated solvents or DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-dipicrylhydrazyl) stable free-radicals yield useful additional structural information for separated analytes. Investigations of fundamental physical and chemical characteristics of the sheath liquid coupling show their direct influence on the efficiency and some of the products of the respective reactions. For example, reducing the capillary internal diameter from 75 to 25μm increased the relative abundance of fully deuterated ions detected by 63-65% (5 exchangeable hydrogens) using constant sheath-flow conditions. Addition of 0.05-0.2mM DPPH to the sheath liquid reduced the peak total ion count obtained for typical antioxidant species by 20 to >95% allowing strongly antioxidant species from mixtures to be readily identified and further studied. The presented approach allows a rapid and information-rich analysis to be performed with minimal reagent and sample consumption., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)