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Håkan Axelson

Håkan Axelson

Research team manager

Håkan Axelson

Selection of antibodies for intracellular function using a two-hybrid in vivo system

Author

  • M Visintin
  • E Tse
  • H Axelson
  • T H Rabbitts
  • A Cattaneo

Summary, in English

Expression of antibodies inside cells has been used successfully to ablate protein function. This finding suggests that the technology should have an impact on disease treatment and in functional genomics where proteins of unknown function are predicted from genomic sequences. A major hindrance is the paucity of antibodies that function in eukaryotic cells, presumably because the antibodies fold incorrectly in the cytoplasm. To overcome this problem, we have developed an in vivo assay for functional intracellular antibodies using a two-hybrid approach. In this assay, antibody, as single-chain Fv (scFv) linked to a transcriptional transactivation domain, can interact with a target antigen, linked to a LexA-DNA binding domain, and thereby activate a reporter gene. We find that several characterized antibodies can bind their target antigen in eukaryotic cells in this two-hybrid format, and we have been able to isolate intracellular binders from among sets of scFv that can bind antigen in vitro. Furthermore, we show a model selection in which a single scFv was isolated from a mixture of half a million clones, indicating that this is a robust procedure that should facilitate capture of antibody specificities from complex mixtures. The approach can provide the basis for de novo selection of intracellular scFv from libraries, such as those made from spleen RNA after immunization with antigen, for intracellular analysis of protein function based only on genomic or cDNA sequences.

Department/s

  • Division of Translational Cancer Research

Publishing year

1999-10-12

Language

English

Pages

8-11723

Publication/Series

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Volume

96

Issue

21

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

National Academy of Sciences

Keywords

  • Animals
  • Antibody Affinity
  • Antigen-Antibody Reactions
  • Blotting, Western
  • CHO Cells
  • Chloramphenicol O-Acetyltransferase
  • Cricetinae
  • Disulfides
  • Genes, Reporter
  • Immunoglobulin Fragments
  • Models, Immunological
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae
  • Transfection
  • Transformation, Genetic
  • Two-Hybrid System Techniques

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0027-8424