Automated pipeline for rapid production and screening of HIV-specific monoclonal antibodies using pichia pastoris

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that bind and neutralize human pathogens have great therapeutic potential. Advances in automated screening and liquid handling have resulted in the ability to discover antigen-specific antibodies either directly from human blood or from various combinatorial libraries (...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shah, Kartik A, Clark, John J, Goods, Brittany A., Politano, Timothy James, Mozdzierz, Nicholas Joseph, Zimnisky, Ross, Leeson, Rachel, Love, John C, Love, Kerry R.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Biomedical Innovation
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Wiley Blackwell 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109438
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0921-3144
Description
Summary:Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that bind and neutralize human pathogens have great therapeutic potential. Advances in automated screening and liquid handling have resulted in the ability to discover antigen-specific antibodies either directly from human blood or from various combinatorial libraries (phage, bacteria or yeast). There remain, however, bottlenecks in the cloning, expression and evaluation of such lead antibodies identified in primary screens that hinder high-throughput screening. As such, ‘hit-to-lead identification’ remains both expensive and time-consuming. By combining the advantages of overlap extension PCR (OE-PCR) and a genetically stable yet easily manipulatable microbial expression host Pichia pastoris, we have developed an automated pipeline for the rapid production and screening of full-length antigenspecific mAbs. Here, we demonstrate the speed, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of our approach by generating several broadly neutralizing antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).