Screening of peptide-displaying phage libraries to identify short peptides mimicking carbohydrates

Peptide-displaying phage technology has numerous applications. Using a specificity-defined monoclonal anti-carbohydrate antibody, we can identify a series of short peptides that mimic the binding specificity of a specific carbohydrate. This chapter introduces pioneering work applying phage display technology to the glycobiology field, presents a step-by-step protocol for phage library screening, and provides useful hints for evaluating results including false positives, all of which should contribute to successful cloning. Thus, biopanning using a monoclonal antibody as the target is described in detail. Because peptides are useful alternatives to carbohydrate ligands, their potential use as structural or functional mimics of carbohydrate-binding proteins is discussed.