Expression vectors for chicken-human chimeric antibodies.

The chicken is a useful animal for preparation of antibodies that are reactive with highly conserved mammalian molecules. For further clinical application of chicken antibodies, we constructed the novel expression vectors for chicken-human chimeric antibodies, pcSLCgamma1, pcSLCgamma4 and pcSLCkappa. These vectors had the following characteristics: (1) any chicken variable regions from hybridomas or a phage display library can be easily introduced; (2) the variable regions are able to be expressed in different immunoglobulin isotypes; and (3) the chimeric antibodies can be highly expressed in either transiently or stably transfected eukaryotic cells (COS-7 and CHO-K1 cells). Western blot analysis of the chimeric antibodies revealed that the expressed products were of the predicted size, structure and specificity. These results indicate that these vectors are useful tools for the chimerization of chicken antibodies.