# Val-Ala dipeptide

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/val-ala/  
OnCo record `val-ala` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The Val-Ala dipeptide linker is easier to manufacture and less prone to aggregation than valine-citrulline, and is used with PBD payloads.

## Summary

The Val-Ala dipeptide, or valine-alanine linker, is a cleavable linker that is easier to manufacture and less prone to aggregation than valine-citrulline, and it is used with PBD payloads. Like valine-citrulline it is cleaved by cathepsin B, but it is more hydrophilic, which matters when the payload itself is very hydrophobic, as PBD dimers are. It is the linker in Loncastuximab tesirine, whose drug record references it. The term belongs to the Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology and the Linker (ADC) term and is paired with the payload record PBD dimer (SG3199 / tesirine), so a reader following the chemistry of that ADC moves between these three entries.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Also known as: valine-alanine linker

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loncastuximab_tesirine
- Zammarchi et al., ADCT-402 (loncastuximab tesirine), a PBD dimer ADC with a valine-alanine cleavable linker (Blood 2018): https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2017-10-813493

## Connected records

- terms: [Linker (ADC)](https://onco.cc/terms/linker/), [PBD dimer (SG3199 / tesirine)](https://onco.cc/terms/pbd-sg3199/)
- technologies: [Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)](https://onco.cc/technologies/adc/)
- drugs: [Loncastuximab tesirine](https://onco.cc/drugs/zynlonta/)
- key papers: [ADCT-402, a PBD dimer-containing antibody drug conjugate targeting CD19-expressing malignancies](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-zammarchi-blood/)

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