Selection, Expression and Purification of Single-Chain Fv Antibodies Against Non-structural Proteins of GB Virus C

Abstract

The GB virus C (GBV-C) exists worldwide, and GBV-C infection is common among healthy blood donors as well as among immunocompromised individuals. It has been shown that GBV-C may have a beneficial impact on HIV disease progression. The results of recent studies also demonstrated that GBV-C may increase survival of Ebola virus patients. However, there is no commercially available GBV-C detection system which would identify past infection. The aim of this study was to select and express functional single-chain, variable fragment (scFv) antibodies against GBV-C non-structural proteins. In order to achieve this aim, we expressed GBV-C non-structural proteins in E. coli and constructed a naïve scFv library. This study is the first to identify recombinant antibodies against GBV-C by using phage display. Six scFv that showed the highest affinity score by ELISA were successfully expressed. These recombinant scFv antibodies may provide a valuable tool for further study of GBV-C and contribute to the improvement of a rapid and accurate test for identification of GBV-C infection.