Nanobodies Selectively Binding to the Idiotype of a Dengue Virus Neutralizing Antibody Do Not Necessarily Mimic the Viral Epitope.

Vaccination against dengue virus is challenged by the fact that a generic immune response can induce antibody-dependent-enhancement (ADE) in secondary infections. Only some antibodies targeting a quaternary epitope formed by the dimerization of the virus protein E possess sufficient neutralizing capacity. Therefore, the immunization with anti-idiotypic antibodies of neutralizing antibodies might represent a safe vaccination strategy.

Native llama Nanobody Library Panning Performed by Phage and Yeast Display Provides Binders Suitable for C-Reactive Protein Detection.

C-reactive protein (CRP) is an inflammation biomarker that should be quantified accurately during infections and healing processes. Nanobodies are good candidates to replace conventional antibodies in immunodiagnostics due to their inexpensive production, simple engineering, and the possibility to obtain higher binder density on capture surfaces. Starting from the same pre-immune library, we compared the selection output resulting from two independent panning strategies, one exclusively exploiting the phage display and another in which a first round of phage display was followed by a second round of yeast display.

[Study of phenotypical and antimicrobial susceptibility markers in enteric Escherichia coli strains].

Forty strains of Escherichia coli isolated from children under 5 years of age with acute diarreas, coming from different provinces of the country , were analyzed. Four important phenotypical determinants were tested: sorbosa, sorbitol, enterohemolysin and 0157:H7 serology, in order to select those strains from enterohemorrhagic or Shiga toxin-producing category. Likewise, they were characterized by biotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility methods.