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THE RIGHT IMMUNIZATION HOST: CHICKENS
Access more therapeutic drug targets with chickens and hCAT one-step humanized antibodies
Humanized chicken antibodies
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The MPS platform combines outbred chickens as an immunization host and our proprietary hCAT technology for one-step humanization. This combination gives you the best of both worlds: all the epitope diversity and features of wild type chicken MAbs, delivered in a developable, humanized format.
The resulting MAb panels have picomolar to nanomolar affinity, and they hit more epitopes than any other platform. These large, diverse panels are essential for reliably hitting the right epitope for therapeutic function, and are especially important for difficult targets.
Chickens unlock more epitopes
Chickens give you access to therapeutic targets that are inaccessible using mice or other mammals. The main reason is evolutionary divergence: if a human protein is too similar to the host animal’s ortholog—usually >90% amino acid identity—the host will not mount an effective immune response. As non-mammals, chickens are a more distant relative, making them a reliable immunization host for conserved targets.
~48%
of human drug targets are inaccessible in mice due to high sequence conservation.
Chickens
are an evolutionarily divergent alternative.
Chickens offer many advantages over mammalian immunization hosts
Even if your target isn’t highly conserved, you can benefit from chickens’ unique advantages. Outbred chickens deliver large, diverse antibody panels with better access to recessed epitopes and functional domains, and their MAbs are usually pan-reactive across mammalian species.
To learn more, read the mAbs article Breaking barriers in antibody discovery: Harnessing divergent species for accessing difficult and conserved targets.
Access to recessed epitopes
Chickens have a long HCDR3 —the region that largely determines an antibody’s specificity. That means they more often have protruding paratopes that can reach into ligand-binding pockets and other recessed therapeutic targets such as GPCRs.
Access to functional epitopes
Outbred chickens generate large, diverse MAb panels. These large libraries reliably deliver MAbs with rare and valuable properties, such as agonistic and state-specific activity.
Compatible with animal models
Chicken MAbs are usually cross-reactive with orthologs in common animal models, including rodents. This can facilitate clinical studies and minimize the need for non-human primates.
hCAT one-step humanizaton and affinity maturation
Our proprietary hCAT platform (humanized Chicken Antibody Technology) uses phage display and automation to deliver high-affinity, humanized antibody panels. This platform eliminates the time and cost required for downstream antibody engineering.- Millions to billions of MAbs are humanized before isolation.
- CDR shuffling enables simultaneous affinity maturation, typically yielding MAbs with picomolar affinity.
- A single-germline framework 100% identical to FDA-approved MAbs ensures high developability.
Case Studies
SLC2A4 | Transporter
Learn how Integral Molecular leveraged chickens to obtain a state-specific antibody against SLC2A4.
CLDN6 | Tight Junction
Learn how chicken immunization yielded antibodies against the highly conserved oncology target, Claudin 6.
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Harnessing Divergent Species for Antibody Discovery
Webinar Agenda
In this webinar, Dr. Ross Chambers will analyze gaps in therapeutic antibodies that stem from the historic use of mice and examine opportunities to exploit previously inaccessible targets through discovery in alternate species. Examples of preclinical and clinical-stage antibodies raised in divergent species will be highlighted, providing an overview of their success.
