Selection is more intelligent than design: improving the affinity of a bivalent ligand through directed evolution.

ABSTRACT: Multivalent molecular interactions can be exploited to dramatically enhance the performance of an affinity reagent. The enhancement in affinity and specificity achieved with a multivalent construct depends critically on the effectiveness of the scaffold that joins the ligands, as this determines their positions and orientations with respect to the target molecule. Currently, no generalizable design rules exist for construction of an optimal multivalent ligand for targets with known structures, and the design challenge remains an insurmountable obstacle for the large number of proteins whose structures are not known. As an alternative to such design-based strategies, we report here a directed evolution-based method for generating optimal bivalent aptamers. To demonstrate this approach, we f

SUBMITTER: Ahmad KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3526301 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature