Phage display: A molecular tool for the generation of antibodies - A review

Phage display comprises an array of methods, which can be used to display p roteins on bacteriophages. We present in this article a summary of techniqu es, which can be used to express antibody libraries on bacteriophages. Sinc e many researchers are more familiar with the conventional hybridoma techni que for production of monoclonal antibodies we describe analogies and diffe rences between these two techniques, both of which are used to reach compar able scientific objectives. We focus on the features which are specific to phage display techniques rather than for hybridoma techniques. These compri se the freedom to choose other animals than the mouse for immunization, the enormously large sample (up to 10(9) clones) which can be drawn and immort alized from a single immunized animal and the opportunity to enhance affini ty of isolated antibodies by in vitro affinity maturation. The panning tech niques, which are used to enrich specifically binding phage antibodies from the huge libraries are briefly summarized. (C) 2000 IFPA and Harcourt Publ ishers Ltd.