Integral Molecular announces new patent protecting use of lipoparticles for eliciting antibodies against protein targets

Integral Molecular, a leader in membrane protein antibody discovery, announces the issuance of a new patent protecting the use of Lipoparticles for eliciting antibodies against membrane protein targets. Lipoparticles are an enabling technology for the company's MPS Discovery Engine™ for isolating monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against membrane protein targets. Lipoparticles are used to generate conformationally-sensitive, inhibitory MAbs against targets such as GPCRs, ion channels and transporters. U.S. Patent No. 8,680,244 was issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on March 25, 2014, further strengthening the intellectual property position of the MPS platform for the discovery of antibody therapeutics.

The MPS platform has been used to elicit unique antibodies against a number of targets that until now had few or no antibodies against them. Targets include the P2X3 and Kv1.3 ion channels and the Glut4 transporter. Antibodies generated using MPS have been characterized as binding conformational epitopes and having high selectivity for their targets.

"GLUT4 in particular has a highly complex and challenging structure for antibody elicitation," commented Joseph Rucker, Director of Research and Development at Integral Molecular. "With twelve transmembrane helices and short extracellular loops that are poorly immunogenic, cell-surface antibodies against glucose transporters have been nearly impossible to raise using conventional methods. We are excited that MPS has allowed us to gain access to this target, which is involved in type 2 diabetes." Integral Molecular is currently employing MPS to discover MAbs against high value membrane protein targets for both internal and customer projects.