Characterization of Monoclonal Antibodies against Bovine herpesvirus type 1 selected by Phage Display Technology

Abstract

The specificity of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to desired targets makes these molecules suitable for therapeutic and diagnostic uses against a wide range of pathogens. Phage display antibody libraries offer one method by which mAbs can be selected for, without the use of conventional hybridoma technology. In this work, phage display technology was used to construct, select and characterize a combinatorial single chain fragment variable (scFv) antibody library against bovine herpesvirus type 1 (BoHV-1) from the immune repertoire of chickens immunized with the virus. In silico analysis of the hypervariable domains of the antibody heavy chains revealed a high frequency of scFv fragments with low variability, suggesting that selection had probably been carried out and favored by a few im-munogenic viral antigens. The reactivity of the scFv fragments selected against BoHV-1 was demon-strated by Phage-ELISA. A significant increase in antibody reactivity to the target was observed after six rounds of library selection, showing its potential use as a molecule for BoHV-1 diagnosis. The strategy described here opens up a field for the use of phage display as a tool for selection of mono-clonal antibodies that could be used for theranostic applications against infectious and parasitic dis-eases of veterinary interest.