Sequence follower library selection

Immune libraries and evolutionary selection strategies intersect in the area of antibody humanization. Recently, we have extended the repertoire of methods available for the generation of therapeutic human antibodies by developing phage display strategies for the selection and humanization of antibodies from immune animals other than mice. Our aim here was to modify protein sequence, in some cases in a very radical way, and yet retain the function of the parental antibody. In the following discussion, we will focus on these novel approaches. 

Because the peptide sequences are very short in such systems, few (if any) errors are introduced by the polymerase and even error-prone PCR techniques are not ideal for introducing sequence changes. Therefore, unless a cassette mutagenesis strategy is followed, the benefit of ribosome display for an evolutionary approach is not exploited with displayed peptides. What is exploited, however, is the possibility to use larger libraries than those possible with in vivo selection systems. 

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