Designing a Humanized Immunotoxin Based on Gelonin Against HER2+ Breast Cancer: An In-Silico Study

Authors

  • Mahsa Daneshmand Department of Comparative Biosciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tehran, Iran , University of Tehran image/svg+xml
  • Jamileh Salar Amoli Department of Comparative Biosciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tehran, Iran , University of Tehran image/svg+xml
  • Mohammad Taheri Rastegar Reference Laboratory, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran , University of Tehran image/svg+xml

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/s2175-97902026e24193

Keywords:

Breast cancer, Immunotoxin, Bioinformatics, HER2, Gelonin

Abstract

Recombinant immunotoxins (RITs) are considered tumor-specific therapeutics because their variable antibody fragment can specifically bind to target cells, and their engineered toxin fragment specifically kills cancerous cells upon internalization. Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is a transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptor that is overexpressed in breast cancer (BC) patients and can be used for targeted therapies in the form of immunotoxins. The current study aimed to develop pertuzumab gelonin as a targeted immunotoxin for HER2-positive breast cancer cells using bioinformatics methods and to analyze its properties in silico. The Fab light and heavy chain of pertuzumab were linked to gelonin's ribosome-inactivating region (RIP) region. The amino acid sequence of the antibody chains was obtained from the Protein Data Bank Server (PDB), and the sequence of the RIP region of gelonin was obtained from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The immunotoxin's physicochemical properties, secondary, tertiary, and 3D structure, mRNA folding, allergenicity, solubility, and antigenicity were predicted from online servers, and protein-protein docking was also performed. The immunotoxin is stable, non-allergenic, and binds to HER2 receptors with high affinity. Based on our findings, it can be a good targeted therapy for HER2 breast cancer.

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References

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Published

2026-07-06

Data Availability Statement

Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions.

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How to Cite

Designing a Humanized Immunotoxin Based on Gelonin Against HER2+ Breast Cancer: An In-Silico Study. (2026). Brazilian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 62, e24193. https://doi.org/10.1590/s2175-97902026e24193