Chromato-panning: an efficient new mode of identifying suitable ligands from phage display libraries

BACKGROUND Phage Display technology is a well established technique for high throughput screening of affinity ligands. Here we describe a new compact chromato-panning procedure for selection of suitable binders from a phage peptide display library. RESULTS Both phages and E. coli cells pass non-hindered through the interconnected pores of macroporous gel, so called cryogel. After coupling a ligand to a monolithic cryogel column, the phage library was applied on the column and non-bound phages were washed out. The selection of strong phage-binders was achieved already after the first panning cycle due to the efficient separation of phage-binders from phage-non-binders in chromatographic mode rather than in batch mode as in traditional biopanning procedures. E. coli cells were applied on the column for infection with the specifically bound phages. CONCLUSION Chromato-panning allows combining several steps of the panning procedure resulting in 4-8 fold decrease of total time needed for phage selection.