Production of a recombinant anti-human CD4 single-chain variable-fragment antibody using phage display technology and its expression in Escherichia coli

Single-chain variable fragment (scFv) is a fusion protein of the variable regions of the heavy (VH) and light (VL) chains of immunoglobulin, connected with a short linker peptide of 10 to about 20 amino acids. In this study, the scFv of a monoclonal antibody against the third domain of human CD4 was cloned from OKT4 hybridoma cells using the phage display technique and produced in E. coli. The expression, production, and purification of anti-CD4 scFv were tested using SDS-PAGE and Western blot, and the specificity of anti-CD4 scFv was examined using ELISA. A 31 kDa recombinant anti-CD4 scFv was expressed and produced in bacteria, which was confirmed by SDS-PAGE and Western blot assays. Sequence analysis proved the ScFv structure of the construct. It was able to bind to CD4 in quality ELISA assay. The canonical structure of anti-CD4 scFv antibody was obtained using the SWISS_MODEL bioinformatics tool for comparing with the scFv general structure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report for generating scFv against human CD4 antigen. Engineered anti-CD4 scFv could be used in immunological studies, including fluorochrome conjugation, bispecific antibody production, bifunctional protein synthesis, and other genetic engineering manipulations. Since the binding site of our product is domain 3 (D3) of the CD4 molecule and different from the CD4 immunological main domain, including D1 and D2, further studies are needed to evaluate the anti-CD4 scFv potential for diagnostic and therapeutic applications.