IN-VITRO SELECTION FROM PROTEIN AND PEPTIDE LIBRARIES

In vitro selection from molecular libraries has rapidly come of age as a protein-engineering tool. Dramatic increases in protein affinity ca n be engineered using phage-display libraries, and specific antibodies can be selected directly from a single 'naive' library of their genes . Repertoires of small molecules are a potentially valuable resource f or drug discovery. Libraries of linear peptides provide ligands for pr oteins that recognize continuous epitopes, and low-affinity mimics of some small molecules, but generally do not contain mimics of large mol ecular interfaces. Switching to constrained peptide formats, and deplo ying more diverse, non-peptide chemical libraries, may bring greater s uccess.