Mutants of immunotoxin anti-Tac(dsFv)-PE38 with variable number of lysine residues as candidates for site-specific chemical modification. 1. Properties of mutant molecules.

Chemical modification of proteins with substances such as poly(ethylene glycol) can add useful properties to proteins. Currently PEGylation is done in a random manner utilizing amino residues dispersed throughout a protein. For proteins such as immunotoxins, which have several different functional domains, random modification leads to inactivation. To determine if we could produce an immunotoxin with a diminished number of lysine residues so that chemical modification could be restricted to certain regions of the protein, we chose the recombinant immunotoxin anti-Tac(dsFv)-PE38 that has 13 lysine residues in the Fv portion and 3 in the toxin. We prepared a series of mutants with 0-12 lysines in the Fv and 0 or 3 in the toxin. Almost all of these molecules retain full biological activity. Our data indicate that replacement of lysine residues can be achieve without loss of biological potency. These molecules are a useful starting point to carry out site-specific PEGylation experiments.