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Functional Mutations in and Characterization of VHH Against Helicobacter pylori Urease

Abstract

Manipulation of clinically significant antibodies can effectively improve the processes of diagnosis and treatment. Affinity maturation process has a significant role in improvement of antibodies efficiency. Error-prone PCR technique is one of the proposed methods for improvement of the affinity of antibodies. In the present research, a method was applied to camel heavy-chain antibody (VHH, nanobody) raised against UreC subunit of urease enzyme from Helicobacter pylori. This VHH was used as a starting molecule to construct a highly diversified phage displayed VHH library. The constructed library of nanobody mutants was subjected to several rounds of panning against UreC antigen. High-affinity mutant was selected. Our VHH (HMR23) showed 1.5-fold higher binding activity than the parental VHH. In addition, the mutant VHH presented a better performance in inhibition of urease activity at low concentrations retaining its specificity and thermal stability.

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Correspondence to Seyed Latif Mousavi Gargari.

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Hoseinpoor, R., Mousavi Gargari, S.L., Rasooli, I. et al. Functional Mutations in and Characterization of VHH Against Helicobacter pylori Urease. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 172, 3079–3091 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-014-0750-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-014-0750-4

Keywords

  • Affinity maturation
  • Error-prone PCR
  • Helicobacter pylori
  • Random library
  • Urease
  • VHH