Introduction
Polymer-drug conjugation (; ; ; Pelegri-O’Day et al., 2014; Hoffman, 2016; ) was first described in the 1954 by German chemist, Horst Jatzkewitz, who demonstrated that covalent attachment of poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) to the psychoactive compound, mescaline, could be used to prolong its circulation and duration of action (Figure 1A) (Jatzkewitz, 1954; Jatzkewitz, 1955; Luxenhofer, 2020). Yet despite its novelty and utility, Jatzkewitz’s innovation went largely unnoticed until the mid 1970s when it was revived by Ringsdorf, Kopecek, and Duncan, among others, who championed the notion that these novel macromolecules could enhance the suboptimal activity of various pharmaceuticals (Ringsdorf, 1975). It wouldn’t be until 1990—nearly 36 years from the publication of Jatzkewitz’s initial work—that the first polymer-drug conjugate would receive market approval in the form of Adagen, adenosine deaminase protein conjugated with 5 kDa poly (ethylene glycol), or PEG, used to treat a rare and hereditary, pediatric metabolic disorder called adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency (Hershfield et al., 1987).
FIGURE 1
Polymer-drug conjugates have since gradually increased in their clinical application, now with more than 29 marketed products that vary widely in polymer architecture (linear and branched), molecular weight (0.3–60 kDa per polymer), and degree of conjugation (1–69-82 per drug) and nearly all of which employ the synthetic polymer, PEG, a polyether typically produced by the ring-opening polymerization of ethylene glycol (
PEG’s remarkable hydrophilicity, flexibility, inertness, and relative biocompatibility have found the polymer numerous uses beyond modulating drug circulation or activity and today it can be found near ubiquitously in both consumer products such as detergents, cosmetics, and car wax, as well as in industrial applications including electroplating, historical artifact preservation, and molded product production (
Immunity Towards PEG Is Pre-existing and Drug Exposure-inducible
PEG was classified as a GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) food ingredient by the FDA in 1973 and has a long history of safe use in humans. It is the most widely used stealth polymer in drug delivery and is typically regarded as a non-immunogenic polymer. Early studies by Richter and Akerblom in 1984 found that 0.2% of treatment-naïve individuals (individuals who have never received PEGylated biopharmaceuticals), had antibodies specific to PEG in their plasma (Richter and Åkerblom, 1984). Since then, the presence of pre-existing anti-PEG antibodies has been reported to range from 4.5 to 43.1% in treatment-naïve donors (Shpetner and Vallee, 1991;
In addition to treatment-naïve immunity, anti-PEG antibodies are also drug-inducible and associated with systemic administration of PEGylated proteins (
PEG Immunity can Induce Hypersensitivity Reactions and Alter Drug Transport/Efficacy but these Effects Vary Across Formulation Type and Mode of Administration
Hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis has been reported in association with many PEG-containing formulations including PEG-protein conjugates (pegloticase (Lipsky et al., 2014), pegvaliase (
Accelerated blood clearance (ABC) of PEGylated compounds was identified in mice in 1999, and in patients treated with pegaspargase in 2007 (
Some PEGylated nanomaterials and proteins do not display ABC in animal models (Koide et al., 2008; Kaminskas et al., 2011; Koide et al., 2012;
In addition to formulation-dependent susceptibility to polymer immunogenicity, mode of administration can also modulate the impact of antibody recognition. Most clinically approved polymer-drug conjugates are intravenously administered and thus their interaction with plasma IgG and IgM is higher than may be expected following intramuscular or intratumoral injection, as is common among many mRNA indications including both BNT162b2/Comirnaty and mRNA-1273/Spikevax (Schoenmaker et al., 2021). Thus, the strikingly low rates of anaphylaxis observed following SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination (CDC COVID-19 Response Team and Food and Drug Administration, 2021) may be attributable in part to its intramuscular administration. Future studies focusing on the impact of polymer type/architecture/density and corresponding immunogenicity on drug efficacy and transport (e.g. lymphatic) following local administration are therefore warranted.
PEG Immunogenicity can be Minimized but Alternative Polymers in Clinical Use are Lacking
Having established that PEG immunogenicity can limit the clinical utility of PEG-drug conjugates and that nanoparticle-based formulations may be less vulnerable to some of these effects relative to polymer-protein drug conjugates, how can one minimize the impact and risk of immunogenicity-diminished efficacy from future polymer-conjugated drugs and vaccines? As discussed above, PEG immunogenicity can arise through a variety of mechanisms (Xu et al., 2022) and includes antibody recognition associated with hypersensitivity reactions (e.g. anaphylaxis), accelerated blood clearance, premature drug release, or cross-reaction to other PEGylated therapies, among others. While limited in number, prior studies suggest that PEG antibody recognition is strongly dependent on polymer molecular weight (Xu et al., 2022), architecture, and end-functional group (Saifer et al., 2014). For example, antibodies with affinity towards backbone ethylene oxide units recognize immobilized PEG that is 2 kDa and larger with a minimum epitope subunit of approx. 16 repeats (700 Da) (Lee et al., 2020). Given that nearly all systemically administered polymer-drug conjugates are 2 kDa and above—per linear chain—the utilization of higher densities of lower molecular weight PEG may diminish the therapeutic impact of these backbone-specific antibodies. Such an approach is conceptually illustrated by branched PEG-drug conjugates (e.g. peginterferon alfa-2a, certolizumabpegol, and pegaptanib); however, those in clinical use (and which are systemically administrable) are limited to single site-modified, di-branched PEGs with per-arm molecular weight of approx. 10–30 kDa and with methoxy terminal groups; thus, the use of increasingly branched PEGs (i.e. hyperbranched, star, dendritic, bottlebrush) of lower per-branch molecular weight may diminish recognition by backbone-specific antibodies while maintaining favorable drug circulation, solubility, stability, activity profiles.
Polymer end-terminal groups can also play an important role in engineering future, less immunologically vulnerable PEG-drug conjugates as antibodies that recognize end-groups represent the other primary class of PEG-specific antibodies detected in vivo. While all clinical PEG-drug conjugates are chain-terminated by methoxy groups, recent preclinical studies suggest that hydroxy-terminal PEG conjugates generate lower amounts of backbone-specific anti-PEG IgM (Shimizu et al., 2018) and, while this improved immunogenicity comes with the tradeoff of higher complement activation and second-dose ABC (and typically, slightly shorter circulation half-life (
In addition to direct modifications of the polymer, corresponding drugs themselves can also modulate PEG immunogenicity. The introduction of 2’-fluro-modified pyrimidines and 2′-O-methyl-modifed purines has been shown to reduce the immunogenicity of PEGylated nucleic acids (Judge et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2009; Yu et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2016) while chemotherapeutics cytotoxic to B cells such as doxorubicin, mitoxantrone or oxaliplatin (Laverman et al., 2001; Ishida et al., 2006c;
Pharmacologic approaches have been further employed to diminish the impact of polymer immunogenicity including conjugation to or pre-treatment with immunosupressants, as well as the pre-treatment or co-infusion of tolerogenic compounds. Khanna et al. for example recently reported that pretreatment with the B/T cell immunosuppressant, mycophenolate mofetil, significantly improved treatment outcomes in a Phase I trial of patients with gout receiving pegloticase (Khanna et al., 2021). Other immunosuppressives under investigation to mitigate pegloticase immunogenicity include methotrexate, azathioprine, and leflunomide, while those used in conjunction with other ADA-prone therapies include rapamycin and anti-CD20. Likewise, pre-treatment or co-treatment with polymer, in particular high molecular weight (i.e. 40 kDa) PEG, has also been shown to reduce liposome-induced anti-PEG antibodies in preclinical studies (McSweeney et al., 2021). Taken together, these pharmacologic approaches are viewed by some to obviate the need PEG alternatives or derivatives; however, the deployment of immunosuppressives in combination with polymer-based vaccines and immunostimulatory therapies presents significant tradeoffs to drug efficacy, while PEG-based tolerogenics remain to be tested in patients.
Given 1) the therapeutic impact of PEG on drug immunogenicity, 2) the possible increasing prevalence of pre-existing and drug-induced PEG immunity, 3) the growing public need for safe and effective mRNA vaccines, and 4) our prevailing reliance on PEG for use in clinically approved nucleic acid and polymer-drug conjugate therapies (Schoenmaker et al., 2021), it is clear that the development and clinical validation of alternatives to (or derivatives of) PEG represents not only an unmet clinical need but also one with broad public health and national strategic interest. Indeed, the need for alternatives to PEG is a common refrain among those in the field (
Given the challenging risk-reward of advancing non-PEG-based polymer-drug conjugates towards clinical translation, what can governments and funding agencies do to facilitate continued innovation in polymer-drug conjugate development and ensure the capacity for safe and effective vaccination at-scale? 1) Biosimilar-like regulatory guidelines for conjugable polymers (i.e. polysimilars) may be one approach to formalize and streamline the approval of new polymer-drug conjugates, albeit one likely requiring increased rigor given the wide structural diversity and potential health hazards of various polymer subunits relative to proteins. 2) Funding or federal lab support to perform large-scale longitudinal studies of immunogenicity towards polymers and other drug conjugates/excipients (lipids, polysaccharides, polypeptides, etc) would elucidate current (and potentially dynamic or age-, race-, and sex-specific) risks of polymer immunogenicity to human health, drug conjugate efficacy, and the strategic national need for mRNA vaccine-stabilizing polymers. 3) Federally subsidized R&D to offset the risks taken-on by companies exploring PEG- and other polymer-conjugates would greatly incentivize further innovation in this space. 4) Funding to improve our poor mechanistic understanding of polymer-induced immunogenicity and associated short- and long-term health risks would accelerate the discovery of new PEG derivatives and alternatives or propel historically utilized polymers through clinical translation. 5) Federal partnerships to ensure the financial viability of domestically manufactured, pharmaceutical-grade PEG and other polymers, as a matter of national interest, would ensure our readiness for future pandemics (and supply chain challenges) surely yet-to-come. In closing, while it is tempting to suggest a singular direction for polymer-drug conjugate development in the future, we also acknowledge that the ideal properties for a conjugation partner vary substantially with drug class, mode of administration, dosing frequency, and disease indication as discussed above; thus, with proper incentives, funding, and tools we anticipate that future conjugates will not only increase in diversity but also diverge based upon drug type and/or indication.
Statements
Author contributions
YWK and ECD wrote and edited the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported in part by the American Association of Cancer Research UK, the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Steeley Dan for inspiring the title to this work. The content here is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the organizations acknowledged herein.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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Summary
Keywords
polymer chemistry, drug delivery, nanotechnology, nanomaterials, PEG
Citation
Kong YW and Dreaden EC (2022) PEG: Will It Come Back to You? Polyethelyne Glycol Immunogenicity, COVID Vaccines, and the Case for New PEG Derivatives and Alternatives. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 10:879988. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.879988
Received
20 February 2022
Accepted
11 April 2022
Published
27 April 2022
Volume
10 - 2022
Edited by
Zhimin Tao, Jiangsu University, China
Reviewed by
Thomas Anchordoquy, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, United States
Yao Sun, Central China Normal University, China
Yang Qinglai, University of South China, China
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© 2022 Kong and Dreaden.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Yi Wen Kong, ywkong@mit.edu; Erik C Dreaden, e.dreaden@emory.edu, e.dreaden@gatech.edu
This article was submitted to Nanobiotechnology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology
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