Antibody Discovery: Identify the Best Clones Quickly Using Single Cell Isolation

Fast & Gentle Single Cell Isolation for Monoclonal Antibody Discovery

• Monoclonal Antibody Screening 
• Benefits of the Bio-Techne’s Single Cell Sorter
• Single B Cell Isolation using the Bio-Techne’s cell sorter  
• Antibody Discovery Resources
• Testimonials from Your Peers

Monoclonal Antibody Screening

Traditionally, scientists have identified antigen-specific monoclonal antibodies with one of two approaches, but each approach has limitations, which slows down drug discovery.

Hybridoma Clones Screening 

A common method for isolating specific antibodies is to fuse B cells with myeloma cells to create immortalized antibody producing hybridoma cells. In order to obtain a stable and specific antibody producing cell line, single cell cloning is an essential step. Limiting dilution has been the traditional approach but is hindered by inefficiency of single cell deposition that is described by the Poisson distribution. This results in excessive labor and reagent costs due to the high amount of screening required to identify single cell derived clones. Bio-techne's single cell dispensing technology overcomes these hurdles with high single cell deposition accuracy (>90% single cell clonality) and gentle sorting pressure to maintain high viability.

Screening for Antigen-Specific B cells

Antigen specific B cells can be tagged with fluorescent surface markers and antigen baits to circumvent the long process of hybridoma formation. Often this approach can yield a much more diverse array of antibody clones that may not survive the hybridoma generation process. This process has traditionally been performed with FACS, however, the high sorting pressures can be detrimental to cell health. FACS workflows also require more expensive reagents, high maintenance, and specialized training. Utilizing Bio-techne's cell sorting and single cell dispensing technology balances the need for a fast, gentle approach combined with fluorescence sorting.

Right: Monoclonal antibody production methods: (Left) Immortalized myeloma cell lines are created; (Right) isolating antigen-specific B-cells that produce the target IgG antibodies. For both methods, Bio-Techne’s Single Cell Dispensers are used to isolate single cells for downstream analysis.

Gentle

Gentle sorting (<2 psi) preserves cell viability;  higher clonality; better outgrowth

Easy

Quick setup in under 3 min; no calibration and no maintenance

Fast

Quickly isolate rare antigen-specific B cells; process up to 1M cells in 5 min

Sterile

Compact size fitting in tissue culture hood; sterile and disposable cell cartridge 

Efficient

Dispensing efficiency 80-90% for CHO cells compared to ~30% with manual pipetting (percentage of dispensed wells with single cells - see figure right)