CRISPR/Cas9 mediated knockout of rb1 and rbl1 leads to rapid and penetrant retinoblastoma development in Xenopus tropicalis.

Retinoblastoma is a pediatric eye tumor in which bi-allelic inactivation of the Retinoblastoma 1 (RB1) gene is the initiating genetic lesion. Although recently curative rates of retinoblastoma have increased, there are at this time no molecular targeted therapies available. This is, in part, due to the lack of highly penetrant and rapid retinoblastoma animal models that facilitate rapid identification of targets that allow therapeutic intervention.

Production of antibody derivatives in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris.

New antibody derivatives are continuously being generated to interact with a range of therapeutic targets. The cost-effective and efficient production of these and other antibody derivatives is crucial for their further success. Here, we describe the construction of the expression vectors needed for heterologous expression of a Fab fragment in the yeast Pichia pastoris.

New strategies in polypeptide and antibody synthesis: an overview.

The synthesis of radioligands can benefit considerably from optimized recombinant protein production, both on the aspect of economy of production and on the level of improving the targeting and pharmacokinetics of the ligand. This paper first describes a general production optimization strategy, and then elaborates on a protein design strategy tailored to targeting applications. Production in Escherichia coli will benefit from economy of goods and time as compared to other organisms.

Optimizing expression and purification from cell culture medium of trispecific recombinant antibody derivatives.

Antibody fragments offer the possibility to build multifunctional manifolds tailored to meet a large variety of needs. We optimized the production of a manifold consisting of one (bibody) or two (tribody) single-chain variable fragments coupled to the C-terminus of Fab chains. Different strong mammalian promoters were compared and the influence of expression media on production and recovery was investigated.