RESEARCH ARTICLE Asprosin-neutralizing antibodies as a treatment for metabolic syndrome Ila Mishra1†, Clemens Duerrschmid1†, Zhiqiang Ku2, Yang He3, Wei Xie1, Elizabeth Sabath Silva1, Jennifer Hoffman1, Wei Xin4, Ningyan Zhang2, Yong Xu3, Zhiqiang An2, Atul R Chopra1,5,6* 1Harrington Discovery Institute, University Hospitals, Cleveland, United States; 2Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, United States; 3Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, United States; 4Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States; 5Department of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States; 6Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States Abstract Background: Recently, we discovered a new glucogenic and centrally acting orexigenic hormone – asprosin. Asprosin is elevated in metabolic syndrome (MS) patients, and its genetic loss results in reduced appetite, leanness, and blood glucose burden, leading to protection from MS. Methods: We generated three independent monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that recognize unique asprosin epitopes and investigated their preclinical efficacy and tolerability in the treatment of MS. Results: Anti-asprosin mAbs from three distinct species lowered appetite and body weight, and reduced blood glucose in a dose-dependent and epitope-agnostic fashion in three independent MS mouse models, with an IC50 of ~1.5 mg/kg. The mAbs displayed a half-life of over 3days in vivo, *For correspondence: with equilibrium dissociation-constants in picomolar to low nanomolar range.
[email protected] Conclusions: We demonstrate that anti-asprosin mAbs are dual-effect pharmacologic therapy that †These authors contributed targets two key pillars of MS – over-nutrition and hyperglycemia.