Selecting agonists from single cells infected with combinatorial antibody libraries

We describe a system for direct selection of antibodies that are receptor agonists. Combinatorial antibody libraries in lentiviruses are used to infect eukaryotic cells that contain a fluorescent reporter system coupled to the receptor for which receptor agonist antibodies are sought. In this embodiment of the method, very large numbers of candidate antibodies expressing lentivirus and eukaryotic reporter cells are packaged together in a format where each is capable of replication, thereby forging a direct link between genotype and phenotype. Following infection, cells that fluoresce are sorted and the integrated genes encoding the agonist antibodies recovered. We validated the system by illustrating its ability to generate rapidly potent antibody agonists that are complete thrombopoietin phenocopies. The system should be generalizable to any pathway where its activation can be linked to production of a selectable phenotype.