Site-Directed mutagenesis for improving biophysical properties of V H domains

Abstract

Recombinant antibody fragments are significant therapeutic and diagnostic reagents. As such, their efficacy depends heavily on their affinities and biophysical properties. Thus, mutagenesis approaches have been extensively applied to recombinant antibodies to improve their affinity, stability, and solubility. Among the existing recombinant antibody variants, human V Hdomains stand out as the ones with the general need of solubility engineering at some point during their development; this solubility engineering step transforms V Hs into nonaggregating, functional entities, rendering them useful as therapeutic and diagnostic reagents. Here, we present one of several approaches that have been employed to develop nonaggregating human V H domains. We apply an in vitro site-directed mutagenesis approach to an aggregating human V Hdomain by means of a splice overlap extension technique. The resultant mutant VHs are nonaggregating in contrast to the parent wild type V H and less prone to aggregation following thermal unfolding. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.