Importance

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Abstract

Methods are disclosed which may be used for the production of antibodies, or antibody fragments, which have the same binding specificity as a parent antibody but which have increased human characteristics. Humanized antibodies may be obtained by chain shuffling, perhaps using phage display technology. In one embodiment, a polypeptide comprising a heavy or light chain variable domain of a non-human antibody specific for an antigen of interest is combined with a repertoire of human complementary (light or heavy) chain variable domains. Hybrid pairings which are specific for the antigen of interest are selected. Human chains from the selected pairings may then be combined with a repertoire of human complementary variable domains (heavy or light) and humanized antibody polypeptide dimers can then be selected for binding specificity for antigen. The methods may be combined with CDR-imprinting. In another embodiment, component part of an antigen-binding site of a no-human antibody known to bind a particular antigen is combined with a repertoire of component parts of an antigen-binding site of human antibody, forming a library of antibody polypeptide dimers with antigen-binding sites. Hybrids selected from this library may be used in a second humanizing shuffling step, or may already be of sufficient human character to be of value, perhaps after some modification to increase human character still further.

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First Claim