Phage-display technology has emerged as a strategy to search for novel antigens and antibodies for diagnostics and vaccine development. It is known that the antibody repertoire in patients with HPV infection and cervical cancer is heterogeneous and the relevant antigens to be used for diagnosis cannot be identified in a number of cases. Using phage display peptide libraries it may be possible to identify epitopes that bind antibodies present in sera from patients with HPV infection and cervical cancer and which correspond to or mimic linear, discontinuous, or even non-peptidic epitopes of the cervical cancer-related agents. Also, phage display human IG single chain variable region fragments library will be used to isolate clones that specifically recognize the components in sera and cervical secretion samples from patients with cervical cancer and its precursors. These clones could then be used for diagnosis of HPV infection and or cervical cancer in phage-based ELISA. Synthetic peptides based on amino acid sequences of the selected epitopes will be prepared and used in peptide based ELISA.
| Santamaria, H; Manoutcharian, K; Rocha, L et al. (2001) Identification of peptide sequences specific for serum antibodies from human papillomavirus-infected patients using phage display libraries. Clin Immunol 101:296-302 |
| Gevorkian, G; Manoutcharian, K; Govezensky, T et al. (2000) Identification of mimotopes of platelet autoantigens associated with autoimmune thrombocytopenic purpura. J Autoimmun 15:33-40 |
