Structural Studies of Antibody Affinity Maturation

Over half of the structurally characterized catalytic antibodies are from the esterolytic class of reactivity. This discussion will focus on 48G7, the most exemplary antibody from this class. In this antibody, the bound and free forms of both germline and mature antibodies have been structurally characterized, allowing for the first structural analysis of the affinity maturation process in a catalytic antibody system (Patten et al., 1996 Wedemayer et al., 1997a Wedemayer et al., 1997b). 

Site-directed mutagenesis of 48G7 does not identify a small subset of mutations that are sufficient to induce mature level binding when introduced into the germline antibody (Patten et al., 1996 Wedemayer 

Antibody Reaction type PDB numbers Free/liganded Resolution (A) Reference 

48G7 esterolytic 1GAF (affinity hapten-bound 1.95 Patten et al, 1996 

17E8 esterolytic 1EAP hapten-bound 2.5 Zhou et al, 1994 

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