Skip to main content

MINI REVIEW article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1523693

Prodrug-based bispecific antibodies for cancer therapy: advances and future directions

Provisionally accepted
Zhijuan Ai Zhijuan Ai 1Bing Wang Bing Wang 2Yunlong Song Yunlong Song 3Panpan Cheng Panpan Cheng 3Xinlin Liu Xinlin Liu 1*Peng Sun Peng Sun 1
  • 1 The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
  • 2 Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
  • 3 Qingdao Institute of Preventive Medicine, Qingdao, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Bispecific antibodies represent an innovative paradigm in cancer therapy, offering broader therapeutic potential compared to conventional monoclonal antibodies. To increase tumor selectivity while mitigating off-target effects in normal tissues, the concept of prodrug-based bispecific antibodies has emerged. This review delineates the various mechanisms underlying the action of prodrug-based bispecific antibodies, including protease-mediated activation, steric hindrance release via proteolytic processing, activation by soluble factors, conditional assembly, and chain exchange-mediated activation. We also address the critical challenges that must be overcome to optimize the development and clinical application of these sophisticated therapeutic agents.

    Keywords: bispecific antibodies, prodrug, cancer therapy, Mechanism, therapeutic efficacy

    Received: 06 Nov 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Ai, Wang, Song, Cheng, Liu and Sun. 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: Xinlin Liu, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China

    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.