Isolation of novel catalytic antibody clones from combinatorial library displayed on yeast-cell surface

A combinatorial library of the Fab fragment of a catalytic antibody able to hydrolyze a non-bioactive chloramphenicol monoester derivative to produce chloramphenicol was constructed on yeast-cell surface. Interesting clones were selected using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). When binding affinity to a transition-state analog was detected, evolution of the catalytic antibody was carried out in vitro on yeast-cell surface. A number of variants with enhanced catalytic activity and binding affinity were obtained. The results showed that the improvement of catalytic antibody, which can be performed easily on yeast-cell surface using the cell-surface engineering system, is a good example of the application of protein library construction.