title: Chemical tools to monitor and manipulate the adaptive immune system.
abstract: The ability to monitor and manipulate antigen-specific immune responses would have a major impact on several areas of biology and medicine. In this perspective, I consider pharmacological methods to do this, with a focus on the development of abiological "antigen surrogates" capable of binding to the antigen-binding sites of antibodies and B cell receptors with high affinity and selectivity. I describe the application of combinatorial library screening to identify antigen surrogates for monoclonal antibodies of therapeutic interest using chronic lymphocytic leukemia as an example. Furthermore, I discuss the use of multiplexed assays for the quantification of antigen surrogate-antibody complexes as diagnostic tools and antigen surrogate discovery via serum screening. Although antigen surrogates are a fairly new concept, I argue that they will open new avenues for both basic and clinical research and that major advances can be expected over the next few years.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Chemistry and Cancer Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 130 Scripps Way, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA. Electronic address: kodadek@scripps.edu.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kodadek
mesh_terms: D056704:Adaptive Immunity; D000906:Antibodies / Q000276:immunology; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000276:immunology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D000936:Antigen-Antibody Complex / Q000737:chemistry; D000941:Antigens / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D015451:Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology; D045663:Quantum Dots / Q000737:chemistry; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics / Q000627:therapeutic use; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D000936:Antigen-Antibody Complex; D000941:Antigens; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries