Guidelines, Strategies, and Principles for the Directed Evolution of Cross-Reactive Antibodies Using Yeast Surface Display Technology

The ability of cross-reactive antibodies to bind multiple related or unrelated targets derived from different species provides not only superior therapeutic efficacy but also a better assessment of treatment toxicity, thereby facilitating the transition from preclinical models to human clinical studies. This chapter provides some guidelines for the directed evolution of cross-reactive antibodies using yeast surface display technology. Cross-reactive antibodies are initially isolated from a naïve library by combining highly avid magnetic bead separations followed by multiple cycles of flow cytometry sorting. Once initial cross-reactive clones are identified, sequential rounds of mutagenesis and two-pressure selection strategies are applied to engineer cross-reactive antibodies with improved affinity and yet retained or superior cross-reactivity.