Rapid kinetic-based screening of human Fab fragments

Human antibodies able to bind with high affinity and specificity to numerous targets have been successfully identified from Fab phage display libraries. A key step in the library selection screening process is the early characterization of library isolates in order to determine which of these isolates to pursue further. Here we describe a Biacore assay that allows isolated clones expressed as soluble Fab fragments in E. coli to be screened and ranked based on their affinity against the target. The assay takes advantage of our ability to measure Fab concentrations in crude bacterial extracts in Biacore using very high density Protein A chips. The procedure allows up to 100 clones per week to be screened and permits the identification of a small number of high-affinity Fabs from a large batch obtained following library selection or affinity maturation.