DARPA Antibody Technology Program Standardized Test Bed for Antibody Characterization: Characterization of an MS2 Human IgG Antibody Produced by AnaptysBio, Inc

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Antibody Technology Program (ATP) focused on developing technologies to enhance the thermal stability and binding affinity of an antibody. In this study, the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) functioned as an independent testing laboratory to provide specific technical support on immune reagents and assist in the definition of government-supplied, antibody-antigen pairs. The project goal was to select, develop, and standardize methods for characterizing the de novo thermal and binding properties of select reagents to be used by DARPA-funded investigators and to use those methods to validate changes in antibody thermal stability and binding affinities. The antibody chosen was the ECBC MS2 recombinant antibody, which detects an MS2 coat protein that forms the capsid for MS2 bacteriophage. The focus of the work described herein was to evaluate the MS2 antibodies supplied by the DARPA-funded investigator, AnaptysBio, Inc. (San Diego, CA), for affinity and stability enhancements. The study results provide standardized parametric data on antibody properties and performance. This information will also help develop a decisional analysis tool to expand confidence levels for the selection of antibody-based reagents that will optimize field operational and performance metrics for future detection and diagnostic platforms.