Title:Antibody Fragment and Targeted Colorectal Cancer Therapy: A Global
Systematic Review
Volume: 23
Issue: 8
Author(s): Sepideh Ghani, Niloofar Deravi, Marzieh Pirzadeh, Behnam Rafiee, Zahra Rezanejad Gatabi, Mojgan Bandehpour and Fatemeh Yarian*
Affiliation:
- Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Keywords:
Antibody fragments, colorectal cancer, targeting, nanomedicine, immune system, Fab, scFV.
Abstract:
Background and Aims: Antibody-based therapeutics have been shown to be promising for the
treatment of colorectal cancer patients. However, the size and long-circulating half-lives of antibodies
can limit their reproducible manufacture in clinical studies. Consequently, in novel therapeutic approaches,
conventional antibodies are minimized and engineered to produce fragments like Fab, scFv,
nanobody, bifunctional antibody, bispecific antibody, minibody, and diabody to preserve their high affinity
and specificity to target pharmaceutical nanoparticle conjugates. This systematic review for the first
time aimed to elucidate the role of various antibody fragments in colorectal cancer treatment.
Methods: A systematic literature search in the web of sciences, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and
ProQuest was conducted. Reference lists of the articles were reviewed to identify the relevant papers. The
full-text search included articles published in English during 19902021.
Results: Most of the 53 included studies were conducted in vitro and in most conducted studies singlechain
antibodies were among the most used antibody fragments. Most antibodies targeted CEA in the
treatment of colorectal cancer. Moreover, a large number of studies observed apoptosis induction and
tumor growth inhibition. In addition, few studies implicated the role of the innate immune system as an
indirect mechanism of tumor growth by enhancing NK-cell killing.
Conclusion: Antibody-based therapy was demonstrated to be of great promise in the treatment of colorectal
cancer rather than common treatments such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgical operations.
This type of specified cancer treatment can also induce the activation of the innate and specific immune
systems to eradicate tumor cells.