Immunologically driven chemical engineering of antibodies for catalytic activity

We describe a new strategy for the preparation of catalytic antibodies based on a two-step procedure. Firstly, monoclonal antibodies are selected only if displaying the following binding features: binding both the substrate and a reactive group in such a way that the two groups are in a reactive position towards each other. Secondly, the selected monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are chemically engineered by covalently binding the reactive group into the binding pocket of the antibody. Using previously isolated monoclonal antibodies, we have focused our studies on the control of this second step.