PHAGE DISPLAY - APPLICATIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND ISSUES IN PHAGE AND HOST BIOLOGY

In the 7 years since the first publications describing phage-displayed peptide libraries, phage display has been successfully employed in a variety of research. Innovations in vector design and methods to ident ify target clones account for much of this success. At the same time, not all ventures have been entirely successful and it appears that pha ge and host biology play important roles in this. A key issue concerns the role played by a displayed peptide or protein in its successful e xpression and incorporation into virions. While few studies have exami ned these issues specifically in context of phage display, the literat ure as a whole provides insight. Accordingly, we review phage biology, relevant aspects of host biology, and phage display applications with the goals of illustrating (i) relevant aspects of the interplay betwe en phage-host biology and successful phage display and (ii) the limita tions and considerable potential of this important technology.