REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1688057
Antibody drug conjugate:a newly developed biological missile for tumor treatment
Provisionally accepted
- 1China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China
- 2Wuhan University Renmin Hospital, Wuhan, China
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Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) represent one of the most advanced drug configurations under current research, primarily composed of a monoclonal antibody (mAb), a highly potent cytotoxic payload, and a linker that connects the drug to the antibody. The mAb serves mainly as a targeting moiety, guiding the conjugate to specific cells. The cytotoxic payload is responsible for the anticancer activity, while the linker ensures stable attachment between the antibody and the payload during circulation. The core advantage of ADCs lies in their ability to leverage the specificity of antibodies to deliver highly potent cytotoxic agents precisely to tumor cells, thereby significantly improving the therapeutic index. However, they also face challenges such as systemic toxicity, drug resistance, tumor heterogeneity, and complex manufacturing processes. Currently, extensive research is focused on technological innovations, the development of novel ADCs, and the optimization of clinical combination therapies. This article provides a comprehensive review of the structure and mechanism of action of ADCs, their developmental history, current challenges, emerging novel agents, and combination strategies with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs).
Keywords: Antibody drug conjugate, Monoclonal antibody, Linker, Cytotoxic payload, Resistance, Toxicity, Immune checkpoint inhibitor
Received: 18 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tang, Xie and Zeng. 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) or licensor 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: Zhuoran Tang, 2020232188@stu.cpu.edu.cn
Disclaimer: 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.