Catalytic antibodies: a critical assessment

In the past few years, antibodies that catalyze a variety of reactions with enzyme-like properties have been produced. The present review is of a critical nature, rather than a survey or an introduction to the field of catalytic antibodies. Here, we examine the performance of catalytic antibodies in light of the features that define an enzyme: substrate specificity, rate enhancement, and turnover. We also refer to some limitations of the technologies currently used for their generation. In the future, antibodies may provide a new repertoire of tailor-made, enzyme-like, catalysts with possible applications in biology, medicine, and biotechnology. In the following sections, we emphasize that these applications will require far more efficient catalysts than are presently available, and we point to several trends for future research that may offer more efficient catalytic antibodies.