Recombinant antibodies: a new reagent for biological agent detection

Antibodies are critical reagents used in several biodetection platforms for the identification of biological agents. Recent advances in phage display technology allow isolation of high affinity recombinant antibody fragments (Fabs) that may bind unique epitopes of biological threat agents. The versa tility of the selection process lends itself to efficient screening methodo logies and can increase the number of antigen binding clones that can be is olated. Pilot scale biomanufacturing can then be used for the economical pr oduction of these immunoglobulin reagents in bacterial fermentation systems , and expression vectors with hexahistidine tags can be used to simplify do wnstream purification. One such Fab reagent directed against botulinum neur otoxin A/B has been shown to be sensitive in a variety of assay formats inc luding surface plasmon resonance (SPR), flow cytometry, enzyme linked immun osorbent assay (ELISA), and hand-held immunochromatographic assay. Recombin ant antibodies can provide another source of high quality detection reagent s in our arsenal to identify or detect pathogens in environmental samples. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.