|
AURELIJA ŽVIRBLIENĖ |
|
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Monoclonal and recombinant antibodies are widely used in biotechnology, medicine and biomedical science. Monoclonal antibodies produced using traditional hybridoma-based technologies are valuable research tools and clinical diagnostic reagents. Recombinant antibodies generated by gene engineering approaches are increasingly being used as therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune and infectious diseases. Therefore, there is a strong need for novel, well-characterized antibodies with the desired specificities and other characteristics.
Our team has extensive expertise in the development and characterization of monoclonal and recombinant antibodies. We have generated more than 500 monoclonal antibodies against different targets: viral antigens, bacterial virulence factors [1], cellular proteins [2], cytokines, hormones, allergens. The largest antibody collection is generated against viral antigens, including measles, mumps, human parainfluenza viruses, henipaviruses, hantaviruses, parvoviruses, human bocaviruses, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis E virus and others. These antibodies are valuable tools for investigating the antigenic structure of viruses, the development of diagnostic assays [3] and the prevalence studies of viral infections. Virus research is carried out in collaboration with Prof. Dr. R. Ulrich (Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany), Prof. Dr. D. Glebe (Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany), J. O. Koskinen (ArcDia International Oy Ltd., Turku, Finland) and other partners. During COVID-19 pandemic, our team contributed to developing microarray-based serologic assays for SARS-CoV-2 infection in collaboration with Lithuanian biotech companies UAB Baltymas and UAB Imunodiagnostika.
Together with our colleagues from the Department of Eukaryote Gene Engineering, we have developed a new technology for the use of virus-like particles as a carrier for target epitopes to increase their immunogenicity. This approach provides possibilities to generate antibodies against short and non-immunogenic protein sequences. For the construction of recombinant antibodies, gene sequences encoding the variable parts of immunoglobulin heavy and light chains are cloned from hybridoma cells producing well-characterized monoclonal antibodies against the target of interest. Recombinant antibodies are developed in different formats – as single chain antibodies (scFv) and Fc-engineered antibodies, where the scFv derived from hybridoma cells are joined to the human IgG Fc fragment [4]. In addition, we have exploited recombinant virus-like particles as carriers for antibody molecules, both scFv and Fc-engineered scFv. This innovative approach allows the generation of recombinant multimeric antibodies displayed on virus-like particles.
Our team has extensive expertise in the development and characterization of monoclonal and recombinant antibodies. We have generated more than 500 monoclonal antibodies against different targets: viral antigens, bacterial virulence factors [1https://www.euromabnet.com/
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Kucinskaite-Kodze, I., Simanavicius, M., Dapkunas, J., Pleckaityte, M., Zvirbliene, A. Mapping of recognition sites of monoclonal antibodies responsible for the inhibition of pneumolysin functional activity. Biomolecules. 2020, 10(7): 1009.
- Stravinskiene, D., Imbrasaite, A., Petrikaite, V., Matulis, D., Matuliene, J., Zvirbliene, A. New monoclonal antibodies for a selective detection of membrane-associated and soluble forms of carbonic anhydrase IX in human cell lines and biological samples. Biomolecules. 2019, 9 (8): pii: E304.
- Kols, N. I., Aatola, H., Peltola, V., Xu, M., Nora-Krukle, Z., Hedman, K., Zvirbliene, A., Toivola, H., Vuorinen, T., Koskinen, J. M., Bruning, A. H. L., Christensen, A., Söderlund-Venermo, M., Koskinen, J. O. Comparison of phenotypic and genotypic diagnosis of acute human bocavirus 1 infection in children. J Clin Virol. 2019, 120: 1719.
- Stravinskiene, D., Sliziene, A., Baranauskiene, L., Petrikaite, V., Zvirbliene, A. Inhibitory monoclonal antibodies and their recombinant derivatives targeting surface-exposed carbonic anhydrase XII on cancer cells. Int J Mol Sci. 2020, 21(24): E9411.