Definition
Ranibizumab (Lucentis; Genentech, South San Francisco, California) is the fragment of a recombinant humanized antibody Fab which binds and neutralizes the human vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). Ranibizumab binds to VEGF-A with high affinity, thus preventing the interaction of VEGF-A to both its receptors VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2. Ranibizumab binds to all VEGF molecules with a one-to-one ratio. Ranibizumab has a molecular weight of 48 kDa, is produced in Escherichia coli, and presents no glycosylation sites. It contains only the Fab fragment of the entire parental antibody bevacizumab (149 kDa) that is an entire humanized recombinant antibody and therefore contains both the Fab and Fc fragments of the molecules.
In vitro and in vivo studies have demonstrated a 5- to 20-fold higher activity of ranibizumab in comparison to bevacizumab and a shorter half-life, estimated in approximately 9.8 days. Because of the smaller molecular weight in comparison to the entire...
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References
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Bandello, F., Castellino, N., Parodi, M.B. (2014). Ranibizumab. In: Schmidt-Erfurth, U., Kohnen, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Ophthalmology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35951-4_1114-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35951-4_1114-1
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