Production of Phage-Display Antibodies for Epitope Mapping

The development of genetic engineering has enabled the production of antibodies in Escherichia coli (1 ,2 ). An essential requirement for a good antibody expression system is that an antibody fragment is folded and in a functional state so that the selection or purification procedure can make use of its antigen-binding properties. The application of filamentous phage-display technology to the expression of antibody fragments enables the rapid cloning of an immunological repertoire to produce large libraries that can be screened for appropriate antigen-binding specificities.