Due to their high binding affinity and specificity, monoclonal antibodies are widely used to
diagnose and treat many diseases. They are produced in mammalian cells with recombinant
DNA technology and purified from the cell broth using affinity chromatography. The most
commonly used affinity ligand for monoclonal antibody purification is staphylococcal
protein A. However, since protein A based chromatography has several drawbacks, research
has focused on alternative immunoglobulin affinity ligands, such as short synthetic peptides.
In the master’s thesis, we constructed a focused phage display library of cyclic peptides
GXYWYCVWFXC, where X represents a randomised site where any of the proteinogenic
amino acids can occur. The cyclic peptides were displayed on M13 phage in the form of a
fusion with minor capsid protein p3. We used a monovalent phagemid based display. Using
molecular cloning techniques, we inserted an AgeI restriction enzyme recognition site into
the phagemid vector pIT2-SL, which allowed the inserts encoding the displayed peptides to
be excised from the vector before next generation sequencing. Library phagemids were
introduced into host cells by electrotransformation. We optimized the protocols for
electrocompetent E. coli TG1 preparation and electroporation, which routinely allowed us
to achieve a transformation efficiency of more than 10^7
transformants per µg of phagemid
DNA. However, the transformation efficiency is much lower for electroporation with a
ligation mixture, so further optimization is needed for the production of phage display
peptide libraries with high diversity. Using next generation sequencing, we identified cyclic
peptide ligands in the library before and after affinity selection. We analysed the abundance
of amino acid residues at each of the randomised positions. After affinity selection,
glutamine, which in E. coli TG1 is also encoded by the amber stop codon, was present at the
highest frequency at position 10. There was also a significant decrease in the frequency of
hydrophobic and aromatic amino acid residues and an increase in the frequency of
hydrophilic amino acid residues at position 2. The most highly enriched cyclic peptides after
selection were GRYWYCVWFQC, GSYWYCVWFQC, GNYWYCVWFQC,
GSYWYCVWFGC and GSYWYCVWFEC. The affinities of the highly enriched cyclic
peptides for human IgG should be comparatively evaluated in further studies.
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