Phage Display Platform

Creative Biolabs develops and commercializes a full range of innovative integrated services that are based on phage display technology. We have extensive experience in library construction and screening, antibody humanization, antibody affinity maturation, production of specific monoclonal antibodies and much more services using phage display techniques. We also provide qualified antibody and peptide phage display libraries in-house to assist our customers’ research and project development.

What is Phage Display?

Phage display is a kind of long-lasting laboratory platform for the large-scale study of molecules interaction, such as protein-protein, protein-peptide and protein-DNA interactions, and select molecules with the highest affinity for specific targets. The technology was firstly described by Smith (1985), and then be further expanded by such groups of pioneers, e.g. Greg Winter and John McCafferty (Laboratory of Molecular Biology), Richard Lerner and Carlos Barbas (Scripps Research Institute), and Frank Breitling and Stefan Dübel (German Cancer Research Center).

The phage display technique relies on engineering bacteriophages to display interested molecules (e.g. proteins and peptides) on their surface. To achieve this, the gene encoding the interested molecule is inserted into the gene of phage coat protein, which resulting in the expression of interested molecule fused with the coated protein of bacteriophage particles and a linkage between genotype and phenotype. The phage display library is then built up by assembling millions of genetically modified phages, which can be used for further screening and selection. This platform can contribute to mimic natural molecules within the cellular process and detect their interaction with other molecules.

Comprehensive Phage Display Systems in Creative Biolabs

With years of research and development, Creative Biolabs has extensive experience in phage display platform by employing various types of phage in various project objectives. In general, filamentous bacteriophages (e.g. M13) are the most popular vehicle choice for phage display and extensively used in many types of research. Meanwhile, Creative Biolabs is also an expert to provide phage display related services via either T4 or T7 phage systems, which can provide different promising alternatives by their special merits.

Table 1. Different phage display vehicles and their characteristics (Ebrahimizadeh and Rajabibazl 2014)

M13 T4 T7 Genome Size 6407 bp 168895 bp 39937 bp Display Protein All coat proteins, usually pIII and pVIII SOC and HOC gp10B Display Size >110 kDa on pIII

<10 kDa on pVIII <710 kDa <132 kDa Display Density <5 copies on pIII

<2700 copies on pVIII <810 copies on SOC

<155 copies on HOC <415 copies Lifecycle Lysogeny Lytic Lytic

Featured Applications of Phage Display

Phage display has been well-recognized as a pivotal tool in immunological and cellular biological research due to its remarkable contribution to the development of new drugs and vaccines. This technology has been widely used as phage display library to select or isolate proteins, scaffolds, peptides or antibodies with high affinity and specificity for interested targets.

As one of the most successful applications, phage display technology has proved its safety and efficiency in the research and development of specific antibodies. Notably, take advantage of phage display platform based on human antibody sequences makes it available to produce fully human antibodies without the ethical and moral issues. In addition, this platform is also a wide choice for in vitro protein evolution; a typical example is the well-known antibody affinity maturation. Combine with mutagenesis and phage display technologies, phage display antibody library with the size of over 108 (1016 has ever been achieved by Creative Biolabs) can be generated to screen the specific antibodies with high affinity for the development of high efficacy with low side effects antibody drugs.

Furthermore, phage display platform is an equally important tool for the development of vaccines and the generation of diagnostic tests for monitoring disease progression and evaluating treatment efficacy.

In the field of applying phage display platform, Creative Biolabs has extensive expertise, which has been accumulated through our over decade experience. Integrate with other advanced technology and various types of in-house phage display libraries, Creative Biolabs is able to offer the most comprehensive services and products based on phage display platform, which including but not limited to library construction and screening , monoclonal antibody production , antibody humanization and affinity maturation . Our seasoned scientists are pleased to meet each of the most specific requirement and provide the most suitable solution for our customer’s satisfaction.

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