Delivery of Monomethyl Auristatin F to the Tumor Microenvironment with Noninternalizing Fibroblast Activation Protein-Cleavable Small Molecule-Drug Conjugates Elicits Potent In Vivo Anticancer Activity

OncoFAP is an ultrahigh affinity ligand of fibroblast activation protein (FAP), a tumor-associated antigen overexpressed in the stroma of the majority of solid tumors. OncoFAP has been previously implemented as a tumor-homing moiety for the development of small molecule drug conjugates (SMDCs). In the same context, the glycine--proline dipeptide was included with the aim to selectively undergo cleavage only in the presence of the target FAP, triggering the consequent release of the cytotoxic payload in the tumor microenvironment. In this work, we evaluate the use of monomethyl Auristatin F (MMAF) as a payload, a close derivative of MMAE bearing a charged carboxylic acid that hampers its cellular permeability, typically employed in the development of internalizing antibody-drug conjugates. The novel OncoFAP-GlyPro-MMAF and the previously described OncoFAP-GlyPro-MMAE were compared in a head-to-head therapeutic experiment in mice bearing FAP-positive tumors. Surprisingly, the MMAF conjugate mediated potent antitumor activity, despite its poor cellular permeability.