Phage display and colony filter screening for high-throughput selection of antibody libraries

During the last 12 years, antibody combinatorial libraries have provided a new approach for the construction and production of reagents and drugs based on the human monoclonal antibodies. Studies employing antibodies or antibody mimics have become an important part of the explosive growth of proteomics. This places tremendous emphasis on the new approaches for faster library screening, improved methods of selection and evaluation of novel applications. The phage display system, together with its variants of ribosome and bacterial display, is the most extensively used method for the rapid screening of large antibody libraries. However, in the last two years the need to improve selection methods together with a complex patent situation regarding the phage display system, has also directed research towards the possibility of performing antibody selection by colony filter screening. Here, we summarise the results obtained by these different methods of selection comparing their efficacy and advantages.