Production and characterization of the single chain antibodies against human alpha2b-interferon

A combinatorial library of single-chain antibodies (ScFv) from mice immunized with human alpha2b interferon (hIFN-alpha2b) was constructed. For obtaining of phage display antibodies the DNA fragments of ScFv were cloned into phagemid vector pCANTAB-5E and rescued from Escherichia coli cells by infection with bacteriophage M13. Bacterial clones synthesizing specific ScFv against hIFN-alpha2b were isolated by several rounds of affinity selection of phage library. After isolation and affinity purification of ScFv-IFN from bacteria cells a high ability to binding of the hIFN-alpha2b has been shown. The sequencing of isolated ScFv DNA and analysis of the data obtained have been carried out. The data of expression stability of obtained E. coli producers such as some features of ScFv expression are also discussed.     

Peptide epitope identification by affinity selection on bacteriophage MS2 virus-like particles

Filamentous phages are now the most widely used vehicles for phage display and provide efficient means for epitope identification. However, the peptides they display are not very immunogenic because they normally fail to present foreign epitopes at the very high densities required for efficient B-cell activation. Meanwhile, systems based on virus-like particles (VLPs) permit the engineered high-density display of specific epitopes but are incapable of peptide library display and affinity selection. We developed a new peptide display platform based on VLPs of the RNA bacteriophage MS2. It combines the high immunogenicity of MS2 VLPs with the affinity selection capabilities of other phage display systems. Here, we describe plasmid vectors that facilitate the construction of high-complexity random sequence peptide libraries on MS2 VLPs and that allow control of the stringency of affinity selection through the manipulation of display valency. We used the system to identify epitopes for several previously characterized monoclonal antibody targets and showed that the VLPs thus obtained elicit antibodies in mice whose activities mimic those of the selecting antibodies.     

Genetic selection of phage engineered for receptor-mediated gene transfer to mammalian cells.

Although phage display is a powerful way of selecting ligands against purified target proteins, it is less effective for selecting functional ligands for complex targets like living cells. Accordingly, phage display has had limited utility in the development of targeting agents for gene therapy vectors. By adapting a filamentous bacteriophage for gene delivery to mammalian cells, however, we show here that it is possible to screen phage libraries for functional ligands capable of delivering DNA to cells. For example, when targeted with epidermal growth factor (EGF), M13 bacteriophage were capable of delivering a green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene to EGF receptor bearing cells in a ligand-, time-, and phage concentration-dependent manner. The EGF-targeted phage transduced COS-1 cells in a highly specific manner as demonstrated by competition with excess free EGF or alternatively with anti-EGF receptor antibodies. We further demonstrate that EGF-phage can be selected, by their ability to transduce EGF receptor bearing cells from libraries of peptide display phage. When phage were incubated with COS-1 cells, EGF ligand-encoding sequences were recovered by PCR from FACsorted, GFP-positive cells and the EGF-displaying phage were enriched 1 million-fold by four rounds of selection. These data suggest the feasibility of applying molecular evolution to phage gene delivery to select novel cell-specific DNA-targeting ligands. The same approach could be used to select genetically altered phage that are specifically designed and evolved as gene therapy vectors.     

Accelerated screening of cDNA libraries using the polymerase chain reaction and Southern blotting

cDNA libraries are normally constructed in either phage or plasmid vectors and screened for sequences of interest using antibodies or, more commonly, nucleic acid probes. To clone a sequence of interest from a library generally involves at least three rounds of hybridization with ³²P-labeled probes. This approach is highly labor intensive, and no information about the size of the hybridizing insert is obtained until the clones have been purified and the insert DNA analyzed by restriction enzyme digestion. We report on a rapid screening protocol for libraries constructed in bacteriophage lambda vectors involving polymerase chain reaction amplification of the insert from hybridizing phage plaques and on its analysis by agarose gel electrophoresis and Southern blotting. This can take place after only one round of conventional screening, and phage from a large number of positively hybridizing plaques can be analyzed by a “one-tube” reaction.     

Development of recombinant single-chain variable fragment against hepatitis A virus and its use in quantification of hepatitis A antigen

Phage display technology has been utilized for identification of specific binding molecules to an antigenic target thereby enabling the rapid generation and selection of high affinity, fully human antibodies directed towards disease target appropriate for antibody therapy. In the present study, single chain Fv antibody fragment (scFv) to hepatitis A virus (HAV) was selected from phage displayed antibody library constructed from peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) of a vaccinated donor. The variable heavy (V(H)) and light chains (V(L)) were amplified using cDNA as template, assembled into scFv using splicing by overlap extension PCR (SOE PCR) and cloned into phagemid vector as a fusion for display of scFv on bacteriophage. The phage displaying antibody fragments were subjected to three rounds of panning with HAV antigen on solid phase. High affinity antibodies reactive to hepatitis A virus were identified by phage ELISA and cloned into a bacterial expression vector pET20b. The scFv was purified by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) on a nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) agarose column and characterized. The binding activity and specificity of the scFv was established by its non-reactivity towards other human viral antigens as determined by ELISA and immunoblot analysis. The scFv was further used in the development of an in-house IC-ELISA format in combination with a commercially available mouse monoclonal antibody for the quantification of hepatitis A virus antigen in human vaccine preparations. The adjusted r2 values obtained by subjecting the values obtained by quantification of the NIBSC standards using the commercial and the in-house ELISA kits by regression analysis were 0.99 and 0.95. 39 vaccine samples were subjected to quantification using both the kits. Regressional statistical analysis through the origin of the samples indicated International Unit (IU) values of 0.0416x and 0.0419x, respectively for the commercial and in-house kit respectively.     

A Phage Display Technique for a Fast, Sensitive, and Systematic Investigation of Protein–Protein Interactions

Phage display is a technique in which a foreign protein or peptide is presented at the surface of a (filamentous) bacteriophage. This system, developed by Smith [(1985), Science 228, 1315–1317], was originally used to create large libraries of antibodies for the purpose of selecting those that strongly bound a particular antigen. More recently it was also employed to present peptides, domains of proteins, or intact proteins at the surface of phages, again to identify high-affinity interactions with ligands. Here we want to illustrate the use of phage display, in combination with PCR saturation mutagenesis, for the study of protein–protein interactions. Rather than selecting for mutants having high affinity, we systematically investigate the binding of every variant with its natural ligand. Via a modified ELISA we can calculate a relative affinity. As a model system we chose to display thymosin β4 on the phage surface in order to study its interaction with actin.     

Efficient point mutagenesis in mycobacteria using single-stranded DNA recombineering: characterization of antimycobacterial drug targets

Construction of genetically isogenic strains of mycobacteria is complicated by poor recombination rates and the lack of generalized transducing phages for Mycobacterium tuberculosis . We report here a powerful method for introducing single point mutations into mycobacterial genomes using oligonucleotide-derived single-stranded DNA recombineering and mycobacteriophage-encoded proteins. Phage Che9c gp61-mediated recombination is sufficiently efficient that single base changes can be introduced without requirement for direct selection, with isogenic mutant strains identified simply by PCR. Efficient recombination requires only short (50 nucleotide) oligonucleotides, but there is an unusually strong strand bias and an oligonucleotide targeting lagging strand DNA synthesis can recombine more than 10 000-fold efficiently than its complementary oligonucleotide. This ssDNA recombineering provides a simple assay for comparing the activities of related phage recombinases, and we find that both Escherichia coli RecET and phage λ Red recombination proteins function inefficiently in mycobacteria, illustrating the utility of developing recombineering in new bacterial systems using host-specific bacteriophage recombinases. ssDNA mycobacterial recombineering provides a simple approach to characterizing antimycobacterial drug targets, and we have constructed and characterized single point mutations that confer resistance to isoniazid, rifampicin, ofloxacin and streptomycin.     

A simple purification procedure for lambda gt bacteriophage DNA with hybridization size screening for isolation of longest length cDNA clones

An improved procedure for isolating lambda DNA and screening lambda gt10 or lambda gt11 libraries is described. Recombinant lambda gt11 bacteriophage particles (150,000) were amplified on three agarose plates (50,000 per plate) with Escherichia coli Y1090 as plating bacteria. After confluent lysis, recombinant bacteriophage was extracted with SM buffer. Bacterial debris was removed by centrifugation. A small aliquot of amplified lambda gt11 bacteriophage was kept to rescreen the bacteriophage, should a large or full-length clone be found to be present, after analysis of the size of the cDNA inserts. The major portion of the bacteriophage particles was purified by treatment with equilibrated DEAE-cellulose, pH 7.5. Purified phage particles were precipitated with polyethylene glycol from the DEAE supernatant and extracted with phenol, phenol-chloroform, and chloroform. Such lambda gt11 DNA was readily digested with EcoRI. Liberated insert cDNA was separated on 1.2% agarose gels, transferred onto a nylon membrane, and hybridized with an alkaline phosphatase cDNA probe in an iterative procedure that allows isolation of the largest cDNA clones present in the library. We have used this procedure to isolate a full-length alkaline phosphatase cDNA. The method is quick, reliable, and less costly than conventional procedures for the isolation of full-length cDNAs.     

An efficient method for variable region assembly in the construction of scFv phage display libraries using independent strand amplification

Phage display library technology is a common method to produce human antibodies. In this technique, the immunoglobulin variable regions are displayed in a bacteriophage in a way that each filamentous virus displays the product of a single antibody gene on its surface. From the collection of different phages, it is possible to isolate the virus that recognizes specific targets. The most common form in which to display antibody variable regions in the phage is the single chain variable fragment format (scFv), which requires assembly of the heavy and light immunoglobulin variable regions in a single gene.

In this work, we describe a simple and efficient method for the assembly of immunoglobulin heavy and light chain variable regions in a scFv format. This procedure involves a two-step reaction: (1) DNA amplification to produce the single strand form of the heavy or light chain gene required for the fusion; and (2) mixture of both single strand products followed by an assembly reaction to construct a complete scFv gene. Using this method, we produced 6-fold more scFv encoding DNA than the commonly used splicing by overlap extension PCR (SOE-PCR) approach. The scFv gene produced by this method also proved to be efficient in generating a diverse scFv phage display library. From this scFv library, we obtained phages that bound several non-related antigens, including recombinant proteins and rotavirus particles.     

An efficient method for variable region assembly in the construction of scFv phage display libraries using independent strand amplification

Phage display library technology is a common method to produce human antibodies. In this technique, the immunoglobulin variable regions are displayed in a bacteriophage in a way that each filamentous virus displays the product of a single antibody gene on its surface. From the collection of different phages, it is possible to isolate the virus that recognizes specific targets. The most common form in which to display antibody variable regions in the phage is the single chain variable fragment format (scFv), which requires assembly of the heavy and light immunoglobulin variable regions in a single gene. In this work, we describe a simple and efficient method for the assembly of immunoglobulin heavy and light chain variable regions in a scFv format. This procedure involves a two-step reaction: (1) DNA amplification to produce the single strand form of the heavy or light chain gene required for the fusion; and (2) mixture of both single strand products followed by an assembly reaction to construct a complete scFv gene. Using this method, we produced 6-fold more scFv encoding DNA than the commonly used splicing by overlap extension PCR (SOE-PCR) approach. The scFv gene produced by this method also proved to be efficient in generating a diverse scFv phage display library. From this scFv library, we obtained phages that bound several non-related antigens, including recombinant proteins and rotavirus particles.     

人源噬菌体抗体库的构建及抗VEGF抗体的初步筛选分析

应用噬菌体表面呈递技术构建人抗体组合文库 .筛选获得了结合血管内皮细胞生长因子( VEGF)的人噬菌体 Fab抗体 ,并对所获抗体的多样性进行了进一步分析 .从不同人群外周血淋巴细胞提取总 RNA,经反转录后采用家族特异性免疫球蛋白可变区基因引物与免疫球蛋白信肽序列引物 ,通过改变 PCR条件或半套式扩增分别获得全部亚型的轻、重链抗体 Fab段 ,并重组到噬粒载体 p Comb3H中 ,经电转化大肠杆菌 XL- 1 Blue,构建了 1 .5× 1 0 8完整组合抗体库 .利用 VEGF12 1对该库经过 4轮固相筛选后 ,获得 1 2个可与 VEGF特异结合的阳性克隆 .酶谱分析表明了所获抗体克隆的多样性 .为通过基因工程改造 ,进一步获得可用于临床的人源 VEGF抗体奠定了基础 .     

Effect of salt shock on stability of lambdaimm434 lysogens

The affinities of the bacteriophage 434 repressor for its various binding sites depend on the type and/or concentration of monovalent cations. The ability of bacteriophage 434 repressor to govern the lysis-lysogeny decision depends on the DNA binding activities of the phage's cI repressor protein. We wished to determine whether changes in the intracellular ionic environment influence the lysis-lysogeny decision of the bacteriophage lambda(imm434). Our findings show that the ionic composition within bacterial cells varies with the cation concentration in the growth media. When lambda(imm434) lysogens were grown to mid-log or stationary phase and subsequently incubated in media with increasing monovalent salt concentrations, we observed a salt concentration-dependent increase in the frequency of bacteriophage spontaneous induction. We also found that the frequency of spontaneous induction varied with the type of monovalent cation in the medium. The salt-dependent increase in phage production was unaffected by a recA mutation. These findings indicate that the salt-dependent increase in phage production is not caused by activation of the SOS pathway. Instead, our evidence suggests that salt stress induces this lysogenic bacteriophage by interfering with 434 repressor-DNA interactions. We speculate that the salt-dependent increase in spontaneous induction is due to a direct effect on the repressor's affinity for DNA. Regardless of the precise mechanism, our findings demonstrate that salt stress can regulate the phage lysis-lysogeny switch.     

Mapping of hiv-1 Gag epitopes recognized by polyclonal antibodies using gene-fragment phage display system.

Phage display has emerged as a powerful technique for mapping epitopes recognised by monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies. We have recently developed a simple gene-fragment phage display system and have shown its utility in mapping epitope recognised by a monoclonal antibody. In the present study, we have employed this system in mapping epitopes recognised by polyclonal antibodies raised against HIV-1 capsid protein, p24 which is derived from proteolytic cleavage of Gag polyprotein. HIV-1 gag DNA was fragmented by DNase I and the fragments (50-250 bp) were cloned into gene-fragment phage display vector to construct a library of phages displaying peptides. This phage library was used for affinity selection of phages displaying epitopes recognised by rabbit anti-p24 polyclonal antibodies. Selected phages contained sequences from two discrete regions of p24, demonstrating the presence of two antigenic regions. The DNA sequences encoding these regions were also cloned and expressed as GST fusion proteins. The immunoreactivity of these epitopes as GST fusion proteins, or as phage-displayed peptides, was comparable in ELISA system using same anti-p24 polyclonal antibodies. The results indicate that the gene-fragment based phage display system can be used efficiently to identify epitopes recognised by polyclonal antibodies, and phage displayed epitopes can be directly employed in ELISA to detect antibodies.     

从噬菌体抗体库中淘选血纤维蛋白特异的单链抗体

为构建小鼠噬菌体抗体库 ,以获得对人血纤维蛋白特异的抗体 ,由小鼠脾脏提取 m RNA,经反转录 PCR扩增出抗体重链、轻链可变区基因片段 ,将二者和一段编码十五肽 (Gly4 Ser) 3的 DNA接头借助重组 PCR组装成为单链抗体 (single- chain antibody,Sc Ab)基因 .将单链抗体基因插入噬菌体展示载体 p CANTAB- 5E,通过电击法转化大肠杆菌 TG1细胞 ,用辅助噬菌体 M1 3K0 7超感染 ,构建了库容量在 1 0 8以上的噬菌体单链抗体库 .利用亲和选择方法 (淘选 ) ,从噬菌体抗体库中选得血纤维蛋白特异的单链抗体 .模拟抗体成熟过程 ,用 DNA改组 (DNA shuffling)技术使抗体基因重新组合 ,构建新的改组抗体库 ,并从中选择到提高了亲和力的噬菌体单链抗体 .抗体基因在大肠杆菌中表达 ,表达蛋白经 Sephadex G- 75柱层析分离 ,得到初步纯化的单链抗体蛋白 .     

Embryonic stem cell gene targeting using bacteriophage lambda vectors generated by phage-plasmid recombination.

Targeted mutagenesis is an extremely useful experimental approach in molecular medicine, allowing the generation of specialized animals that are mutant for any gene of interest. Currently the rate determining step in any gene targeting experiment is construction of the targeting vector (TV). In order to streamline gene targeting methods and avoid problems encountered with plasmid TVs, we describe the direct application of lambda phage in targeted mutagenesis. The recombination-proficient phage vector lambda2TK permits generation of TVs by conventional restriction-ligation or recombination-mediated methods. The resulting lambdaTV DNA can then be cleaved with restriction endonucleases to release the bacteriophage arms and can subsequently be electroporated directly into ES cells to yield gene targets. We demonstrate that in vivo phage-plasmid recombination can be used to introduce neo and lacZ - neo mutations into precise positions within a lambda2TK subclone via double crossover recombination. We describe two methods for eliminating single crossover recombinants, spi selection and size restriction, both of which result in phage TVs bearing double crossover insertions. Thus TVs can be easily and quickly generated in bacteriophage without plasmid subcloning and with little genomic sequence or restriction site information.     

A partial-complementary adapter for an improved and simplified ligation-mediated suppression PCR technique

Ligation-mediated suppression PCR (LMS-PCR) is a powerful tool for walking in unknown genomic DNA regions from known adjacent sequences. This approach has made it feasible to obtain promoter sequences and to enable researchers to identify full-length gene sequences or isoforms of multigene families. However, the advantages of LMS-PCR can be obviated by the presence of incomplete base modifications on the suppression adapters. We propose here that a 'partial-complementary adapter' is a more reliable suppression adapter, demanding only 5'-end phosphorylation. We also describe a simplified procedure for the easier preparation of PCR templates with very small quantities of DNA and a fast and direct characterization of the suppression-PCR products. A set of practical guidelines is proposed for pre-checking the efficiency of the adapter modification using two model systems: bacteriophage lambda (lambda) and Arabidopsis.     

An anti-leukemic single chain Fv antibody selected from a synthetic human phage antibody library

The display of human antibody repertoire on the cell surface of the filamentous bacteriophage has offered a novel strategy for selecting antibodies to a diverse range of purified targets. However, the selection of antibodies with biological functions has not yet been fully investigated. To select phage antibodies with therapeutic potential, a synthetic human single chain Fv (scFv) phage antibody library was panned on whole premyelocytic leukemia cell line (HL60). Phages binding to common receptors and undesirable phages were subtracted by incubating the library with human glioma cells. High affinity binding phages to HL60 cells were enriched by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. After the 6th round of selection, 50% of the selected phage antibodies showed significant binding to HL60 cells, whereas none of the analyzed phage antibodies bound to human pre-B cells (Nalm-6). In addition to binding, one scFv antibody inhibited HL60 cell proliferation by 90% compared to irrelevant scFv antibodies. Taken together the data demonstrate that specific scFv antibodies with biological functions can be isolated by using whole cells as affinity matrix.     

Development of a novel mammalian cell surface antibody display platform

Antibody display systems have been successfully applied to screen, select and characterize antibody fragments. These systems typically use prokaryotic organisms such as phage and bacteria or lower eukaryotic organisms, such as yeast. These organisms possess either no or different post-translational modification functions from mammalian cells and prefer to display small antibody fragments instead of full-length IgGs. We report here a novel mammalian cell-based antibody display platform that displays full-length functional antibodies on the surface of mammalian cells. Through recombinase-mediated DNA integration, each host cell contains one copy of the gene of interest in the genome. Utilizing a hot-spot integration site, the expression levels of the gene of interest are high and comparable between clones, ensuring a high signal to noise ratio. Coupled with fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) technology, our platform is high throughput and can distinguish antibodies with very high antigen binding affinities directly on the cell surface. Single-round FACS can enrich high affinity antibodies by more than 500 fold. Antibodies with significantly improved neutralizing activity have been identified from a randomly mutagenized library, demonstrating the power of this platform in screening and selecting antibody therapeutics.