Epitope Mapping of Monoclonal Antibodies
 

Creative Biolabs together with our sister company Creative BioStructure has been a leader in commercializing a comprehensive panel of methodologies in mapping both linear and conformational epitopes of monoclonal antibodies.

Epitope mapping of proteins is used for development of new vaccines. Also, epitope mapping is an essential aspect of the discovery and development of diagnostic and therapeutic antibodies. Intellectual property considerations of patentability are another important issue for epitope mapping of a therapeutic antibody. Furthermore, regulatory agencies recommend that for any antibodies to be used in humans, the antigenic epitopes should be biochemically determined.

Epitope mapping is the process of identification and characterization of the minimum molecular structures that are recognized by the Immune System, mainly T and B cells. Most epitopes recognized by antibodies or B cells are three-dimensional surface features of a protein antigen; these features fit precisely and thus bind to antibodies. In contrast, some epitopes are linear, which are determined by the amino acid sequence (the primary structure) rather than by the 3D shape (tertiary structure) of a protein.
 

Linear and conformational epitope mapping by crystallography

Staffed by dedicated scientists with combined expertise in antibody engineering and protein X-ray crystallography, Creative BioStructure has established an antibody epitope mapping platform this is based on protein crystallography. We have extensive experience in crystallizing antibody/antigen complexes and resolving their 3D structures. In particular, we are able to map the epitopes of a large variety of antibody forms, including intact IgG, Fab, scFv, F(ab')2, diabody, minibody, minoantibody, tandem scFv and nanobody as well as affibody. X-ray crystallography of antigen/antibody complexes allows mapping both conformational and linear epitopes.

Please refer to our website at Creative BioStructure for more information regarding resolving the structure of an antigen/antibody complex.

Linear epitope mapping by screening phage display peptide libraries

We rely on our phage display based Bio-fishing Platform to offer linear epitope mapping service. Of note, we have two random phage display peptide libraries that were constructed in house using Trimer Codon technology.

TriCo-16^TM Phage Display Peptide Library
TriCo-20^TM Phage Display Peptide Library

In addition, linear epitope mapping can also be performed using NEB Ph.D.TM-7 and Ph.D.TM-12 Phage Display Peptide Libraries.

NEB Ph.D.^TM-7 Phage Display Peptide Library
Ph.D.^TM-12 Phage Display Peptide Library.
 

Compared with the commonly employed linear epitope mapping strategy of overlapping peptide arrays [chemically synthesized combinatorial peptide libraries], our phage display peptide libraries have a much greater diversity of the peptides and provide a method in which signals from individual peptides can be amplified for multiple rounds, thus significantly enhance the possibility of isolating the peptide of the perfect match.