Virus neutralization by germ-line vs. hypermutated antibodies.

ABSTRACT: Mice infected with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a cytopathic virus closely related to rabies virus, mount a virus-neutralizing antibody response protecting against lethal disease. VSVneutralizing monoclonal IgGs isolated from primary immune responses were devoid of somatic mutations, whereas most secondary and all hyperimmune response IgGs tested were hypermutated. A comparative analysis of recombinant single-chain antibody fragments (scFv-Ckappa) revealed that even the germ-line precursor of one hypermutated antibody bound and neutralized VSV. Four somatic amino acid substitutions in V(H) increased by 300-fold the binding strength of monovalent scFv-Ckappa. The multivalent binding avidity of germ-line scFv-Ckappa was increased by more than 10-fold compared with the monovalent binding

SUBMITTER: Kalinke U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC27744 | biostudies-literature | 2000 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature