Computational detection of antigen-specific B cell receptors following immunization.

B cell receptors (BCRs) play a crucial role in recognizing and fighting foreign antigens. High-throughput sequencing enables in-depth sampling of the BCRs repertoire after immunization. However, only a minor fraction of BCRs actively participate in any given infection.

Genetic background and immunological status influence B cell repertoire diversity in mice.

The relationship between the immune repertoire and the physiopathological status of individuals is essential to apprehend the genesis and the evolution of numerous pathologies. Nevertheless, the methodological approaches to understand these complex interactions are challenging. We performed a study evaluating the diversity harbored by different immune repertoires as a function of their physiopathological status.

Multitarget selection of catalytic antibodies with β-lactamase activity using phage display.

β-lactamase enzymes responsible for bacterial resistance to antibiotics are among the most important health threats to the human population today. Understanding the increasingly vast structural motifs responsible for the catalytic mechanism of β-lactamases will help improve the future design of new generation antibiotics and mechanism-based inhibitors of these enzymes. Here we report the construction of a large murine single chain fragment variable (scFv) phage display library of size 2.

Exploitation of rolling circle amplification for the construction of large phage-display antibody libraries.

Phage display antibody libraries have proven to have a significant role in the discovery of therapeutic antibodies and polypeptides with desired biological and physicochemical properties. Obtaining a large and diverse phage display antibody library, however, is always a challenging task. Various steps of this technique can still undergo optimization in order to obtain an efficient library.

Catalytic antibodies and their applications in biotechnology: state of the art.

Catalytic antibodies are immunoglobulins endowed with enzymatic properties. Discovered in the second part of the 1980s, the enthusiasm they initially aroused was counterbalanced by the difficulty of their production and their low catalytic rates. Nevertheless, improvements in expression systems and engineering technologies, combined with various studies suggesting that catalytic antibodies play a role in the immune system, have opened the way to new applications for these proteins.