Selection of Fully Characterized Lead Antibody Candidates by High-Throughput Multiplex Screenings

摘要

Within pharmaceutical and biotech industries there is an ever-growing interest in transmembrane proteins as potential targets for drug development in many areas, including oncology and autoimmune disease. The wide range of numerous signaling pathways in which transmembrane proteins are involved, make them hugely important targets for the regulation of disease-related cell functions. However, transmembrane proteins often have complex 3D structures which are difficult to express. Generation of high quality reagents for animal immunization and screening purposes is crucial to swiftly progress through an antibody lead generation process and select valuable candidates for clinical trials. Moreover, high-throughput screening not only for target binding but also for functional properties significantly increases the chance of identifying lead candidates. Therefore, it is a prerequisite for therapeutic lead discovery programs to have the ability of screening large numbers of molecules in appropriate assays in a short time interval. Here, ModiQuest Research presents an antibody discovery campaign against a transmembrane protein. By using proprietary technologies to generate screening and immunization cell lines (ModiVacc?), performing multiple immunization strategies using different species followed by highly efficient large-scale electrofusion (ModiFuse?) and, in parallel, by screening ModiQuest’s in-house human phage display library (ModiPhage?), large panels of antibodies were obtained. By applying comprehensive multiplex high-throughput screenings, fully characterized lead antibody candidates were selected. The advantages of ModiQuest’s technology platform are a quick antibody generation time, efficient electrofusion protocols, and high-throughput screening capacity. Moreover, flexibility in designing functional assays allows antibody characterization tailored to virtually any application.