Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology – Vector – per se
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-28
2002-07-23
Guzo, David (Department: 1636)
Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology
Vector, per se
C435S254100, C435S254110, C435S254200, C435S006120, C435S007100, C435S007310
Reexamination Certificate
active
06423538
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the fields of immunology and protein chemistry. More specifically, the present invention relates to the display of peptides and proteins on the yeast cell surface for selection of sequences with desirable binding properties from combinatorial libraries.
2. Description of the Related Art
Antibody combining site structure can be predicted with reasonable accuracy from polypeptide sequence data, but the ability to rationally engineer improvements in binding affinity and specificity has proven more elusive, despite some successes (e.g., Roberts et al., '87; Riechmann et al., '92). As a result, mutagenesis and screening of libraries currently represents the most fruitful approach to directed affinity maturation of antibodies. The recent explosion of interest in combinatorial libraries for isolation of molecules with useful binding or catalytic properties has been driven largely by the availability of new techniques for the construction and screening of such libraries. In particular, the construction and screening of antibody immune repertoires in vitro promises improved control over the strength and specificity of antibody-antigen interactions.
The most commonly used system for construction of diverse antibody libraries in vitro is fusion of antibodies to the coat proteins of filamentous phage (e.g., Huse et al., '89; Clackson et al., '91; Marks et al., '92). Fusions are made most commonly to a minor coat protein, called the gene III protein (pIII), which is present in three to five copies at the tip of the phage. A phage constructed in this way can be considered a compact genetic “unit”, possessing both the phenotype (binding activity of the displayed antibody) and genotype (the gene coding for that antibody) in one package.
Antibodies possessing desirable binding properties are selected by binding to immobilized antigen in a process called “panning.” Phage bearing nonspecific antibodies are removed by washing, and then the bound phage are eluted and amplified by infection of
E. coli
. This approach has been applied to generate antibodies against many antigens, including: hepatitis B surface antigen (Zebedee et al., '92); polysaccharides (Deng et al., '94), insulin-like growth factor
1
(Garrard & Henner,'93), 2-phenyloxazol-5-one (Riechmann & Weill, '93), and 4-hydroxy-5-iodo-3-nitro-phenacetyl-(NIP)-caproic acid (Hawkins et al., '92).
Although panning of antibody phage display libraries is a powerful technology, it possesses several intrinsic difficulties that limit its wide-spread successful application. First, very high affinity antibodies (K
D
≲1 nM) are difficult to isolate by panning, since the elution conditions required to break a very strong antibody-antigen interaction are generally harsh enough (e.g., low pH, high salt) to denature the phage particle sufficiently to render it non-infective. Secondly, the requirement for physical immobilization of an antigen to a solid surface produces many artifactual difficulties. For example, high antigen surface density introduces avidity effects which mask true affinity. Also, physical tethering reduces the translational and rational entropy of the antigen, resulting in a smaller &Dgr;S upon antibody binding and a resultant overestimate of binding affinity relative to that for soluble antigen and large effects from variability in mixing and washing procedures lead to difficulties with reproducibility. Thirdly, the presence of only one to a few antibodies per phage particle introduces substantial stochastic variation, and discrimination between antibodies of similar affinity becomes impossible. For example, affinity differences of 6-fold or greater are often required for efficient discrimination (Riechmann & Weill, '93). Finally, populations can be overtaken by more rapidly growing wildtype phage. In particular, since pIII is involved directly in the phage life cycle, the presence of some antibodies or bound antigens will prevent or retard amplification of the associated phage.
Display of antibodies on the surface of
Escherichia coli
has been developed as an alternative methodology solving several of the problems associated with phage display (Francisco, et al., '93), but introduces new limitations.
E coli
possesses a lipopolysaccharide layer or capsule that may interfere sterically with macromolecular binding reactions. In fact, a presumed physiological function of the bacterial capsule is restriction of macromolecular diffusion to the cell membrane, in order to shield the cell from the immune system (DiRienzo et al., '78). Since the periplasm of
E. coli
has not evolved as a compartment for the folding and assembly of antibody fragments, expression of antibodies in
E. coli
has typically been very clone dependent, with some clones expressing well and others not at all. Such variability introduces concerns about equivalent representation of all possible sequences in an antibody library expressed on the surface of
E. coli.
The potential applications of monoclonal antibodies to the diagnosis and treatment of human disease are far-reaching (e.g., Zaccolo & Malavasi, '93; Serafini, '93). Applications to cancer therapy (Hand et al,, '94; Goldenberg, '93; Yarmush et al., '93; McKearn, '93) have been pursued actively. Antibody therapies for Gram-negative sepsis still hold promise despite discouraging preliminary results (Baumgartner & Glauser, '93). In vitro applications to immunohistochemistry (Mietlinen, '93), immunoassay (Kricka, '93; Ishikawa et al., '93), and immunoaffinity chromatography (Yarmuch et al., '92) are already well-developed. For each of these applications, antibodies with high affinity (i.e., K
D
≲10 nM) and high specificity are desirable. Anecdotal evidence, as well as the a priori considerations discussed previously, suggest that phage display is unlikely to consistently produce antibodies of sub-nanomolar affinity.
The structural similarities between B-cells displaying antibodies and yeast cells displaying antibodies provide a closer analogy to in vivo affinity maturation than is available with filamentous phage. Moreover, the ease of growth culture and facility of generic manipulation available with yeast will enable large populations to be mutagenized and screened rapidly. By contrast with conditions in the mammalian body, the physicochemical conditions of binding and selection can be altered for a yeast culture within a broad range of pH, temperature, and ionic strength to provide additional degrees of freedom in antibody engineering experiments.
Combinatorial library screening and selection methods have become a common tool for altering the recognition properties of proteins (Ellman et al., 1997, Phizicky & Fields, 1995). The most widespread technique is phage display, whereby the protein of interest is expressed as a polypeptide fusion to a bacteriophage coat protein and subsequently screened by binding to immobilized or soluble biotinylated ligand. Phage display has been successfully applied to antibodies, DNA binding proteins, protease inhibitors, short peptides, and enzymes (Choo & Klug, 1995, Hoogenboom, 1997, Ladner, 1995, Lowman et al., 1991, Markland et al., 1996, Matthews & Wells, 1993, Wang et al., 1996). Nevertheless, phage display possesses several shortcomings. For example, some eucaryotic secreted proteins and cell surface proteins require post-translational modifications such as glycosylation or extensive disulfide isomerization which are unavailable in bacterial cells. Furthermore, the nature of phage display precludes quantitative and direct discrimination of ligand binding parameters.
Several bacterial cell surface display methods have been developed (Georgiou et al., 1997). However, use of a procaryotic expression system occasionally introduces unpredictable expression biases (Knappik & Pluckthun, 1995, Ulrich et al., 1995, Walker & Gilbert, 1994) and bacterial
Boder Eric T.
Keike Michele
Kranz David M.
Wittrup K. Dane
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Greenlee Winner & Sullivan, P.C.
Guzo David
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