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Fab4meD

Fragment AntiBodies for MEDicine

An academic technology platform for the development of
recombinant antibodies (FABs) with clinical relevance

"Le génie est l’extrême pointe du sens pratique."

- Jean Cocteau, French poet

Fab4meD is an academic technology platform harnessing the power of phage display to discover fragment antibodies (FABs) that bind selected targets with high affinity and specificity. FABs combine light and heavy chain portions that contain the antigen (Ag)-binding domain of an antibody (Ab). The resulting FAB is smaller than a normal Ab and expressible as a recombinant protein, while preserving a high affinity for the Ag. The coupling of a large library of FABs, either immune or naïve, to phages via recombinant DNA technology permits high affinity screening of Ab directed to various targets at relatively low cost. Following the isolation of FABs directed against a cell, a protein or other molecules or organelles, the FAB is cloned in an appropriate expression vector and the specificity and affinity of the expressed recombinant FAB for target binding is determined. In the case a target is a whole cell, a subtractive step using control cells is usually included prior to screening per se and the FAB ligand is then identified using immunoprecipitation coupled with mass spectrometry (IP-MS).

The Fab4meD platform is located in the Translational Proteomics laboratory at the Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) affiliated with the University of Montreal. The platform is a service for the research community, priority being given to IRCM and University of Montreal researchers. FABs can be used for target detection (western blotting, immunofluorescence), target inhibition (activity assay), cell isolation through cell sorting for single-cell analysis. Single-cell proteomics (SCP) is a favorite analysis in our laboratory.

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