Synthetic Modular Antibody Construction by Using the SpyTag/SpyCatcher Protein-Ligase System

Efforts to engineer recombinant antibodies for specific diagnostic and therapy applications are time consuming and expensive, as each new recombinant antibody needs to be optimized for expression, stability, bio-distribution, and pharmacokinetics. We have developed a new way to construct recombinant antibody-like “devices” by using a bottom-up approach to build them from well-behaved discrete recombinant antibody domains or “parts”. Studies on antibody structure and function have identified antibody constant and variable domains with specific functions that can be expressed in isolation. We used the SpyTag/SpyCatcher protein ligase to join these parts together, thereby creating devices with desired properties based on summed properties of parts and in configurations that cannot be obtained by using genetic engineering. This strategy will create optimized recombinant antibody devices at reduced costs and with shortened development times.