This proposal outlines the development of a combinatorial peptide screening system capable of analyzing all possible permutations of amino acids of up to 12 residues in length. This involves screening 1 x 10 to the 15th peptide molecules and represents an improvement over existing technologies by 4 orders of magnitude. In order to accomplish this goal, the power of phage genetics is coupled with the advantages of combinatorial in vivo cloning in a new """"""""polycos"""""""" cloning vector system. The proposed system offers tremendous potential in identifying valuable peptides for therapeutic, diagnostic, and catalytic use. The overall market potential for such a system approaches that available for monoclonal antibodies. In addition, there exists an opportunity for improving protein modeling and engineering strategies.
