Recombinant expression of nanobodies and nanobody-derived immunoreagents

Antibody fragments for which the sequence is available are suitable for straightforward engineering and expression in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems. When produced as fusions with convenient tags, they become reagents which pair their selective binding capacity to an orthogonal function. Several kinds of immunoreagents composed by nanobodies and either large proteins or short sequences have been designed for providing inexpensive ready-to-use biological tools. The possibility to choose among alternative expression strategies is critical because the fusion moieties might require specific conditions for correct folding or post-translational modifications. In the case of nanobody production, the trend is towards simpler but reliable (bacterial) methods that can substitute for more cumbersome processes requiring the use of eukaryotic systems. The use of these will not disappear, but will be restricted to those cases in which the final immunoconstructs must have features that cannot be obtained in prokaryotic cells. At the same time, bacterial expression has evolved from the conventional procedure which considered exclusively the nanobody and nanobody-fusion accumulation in the periplasm. Several reports show the advantage of cytoplasmic expression, surface-display and secretion for at least some applications. Finally, there is an increasing interest to use as a model the short nanobody sequence for the development of in silico methodologies aimed at optimizing the yields, stability and affinity of recombinant antibodies.