Resource Overview
Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are valuable for medical and biotech applications but during development, their expression and purification often prove challenging. Single-domain antibody fragments (VHHs) from Camelidae are promising alternatives, offering high affinity and specificity, enhanced solubility, thermal stability, and deeper tissue penetration. VHHs lack complex structural features that complicate expression, making them suitable for recombinant production in E. coli cells or E. coli-based cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) systems, including NEBExpress® and PURExpress® from New England Biolabs.
Key Takeaways:
- Rapid, high-throughput production of VHHs with yields sufficient for downstream BLI analysis
- Efficient and accurate Quantification and Kinetic characterization of the VHHs directly in crude samples, without the need for purification
- An 80% time saving: progressing from DNA template to binding kinetic data in 1 day vs. 5 days with conventional workflows
- Comparable high-affinity binding kinetics were achieved across cell lysate and cell-free expression systems, confirming that the expressed VHHs remained functional in crude sample matrices
Resource details:
- Document type: Application Note
- Page count: 10
- Read time: 8 minutes
¹ New England Biolabs, Inc., 240 County Rd, Ipswich, MA 01938 USA
² Sartorius Corporation, 47661 Fremont Blvd, Fremont, CA 94538 USA
NEBExpress® and PURExpress® are registered trademarks of New England Biolabs, Inc.
