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As we all know, many cellular activities are controlled by post-translational modifications, the study of which is stuck by the lack of specific reagents due greatly to their nature of ubiquitousness and non-immunogenicity. With great efforts, Creative Biolabs has developed PTM-Ab™ technology, which offers services for post-translational modification specific antibody discovery.

Post-translational modifications are modifications that occur on a protein, catalysed by enzymes after its translation by ribosomes is complete. Post-translational modification generally refers to the addition of a functional group covalently to a protein as in phosphorylation and neddylation. Protein post-translational modifications play an important role in many cellular processes, such as cellular differentiation, protein degradation, signaling and regulatory processes, regulation of gene expression, and protein-protein interactions. These modifications influence almost all aspects of normal cell biology and pathogenesis. Therefore, identifying and understanding PTMs is crucial in studying cell biology as well as disease treatment and prevention.

Phage display platform for Post-translational Modification Specific Antibody Discovery

Creative Biolabs utilizes phage display technology to support their post-translational modification specific antibody discovery. The staff scientists from Creative Biolabs have extensive experience in screening phage display peptide, cDNA and scFv/Fab libraries. In particular, by conducting library screening and panning for 4 cycles, we normally get scFv/Fab antibodies of an affinity of 10^-10 M.

In comparison with hybridoma technology, phage display antibody library technology hasmore advantages. Hybridoma-based monoclonal antibody technology can only generate a small number of binders against a particular immunogen at a time; whereas phage display technology can present the entire antibody repertoire [e.g., 10¹⁰] of an immunized animal, in which almost 10% of the antibodies are immunogen[s]-specific. With such a huge pool of potential binders, the chance is much better to use phage display technology to discover posttranslational modification specific antibodies. In addition, it is hard to incorporate an enriching step that can selectively isolate antibodies of desired functionality with hybridoma technology. 

In most cases, all the hybridoma clones are produced first and then validated one by one. In contrast, phage display technology allows various enriching strategies. Post-translational modification specific antibodies can be enriched, so that others without the desired functionality can be excluded from further validation. For example, antibody library screening can be achieved by capturing strong binders with the PTM-modified target while using the unmodified controls to block or deplete cross-reactive binders. In particular, biopanning allows isolation of antibodies of the strongest affinity from the immunized animals.

Learn more about Post-translational Modification.

About Creative Biolabs

Creative Biolabs is a biotech related service provider from the USA. It is specialized in the research and development of antibody based technologies.