Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) is a serious pathogen of many economically important commercial fruit and vegetable crops worldwide. It is a particular problem in warmer climates, where plants are not grown under cover thus necessitating undesirably high use of agrochemicals for the control of insect vectors. Efforts towards controlling of this virus would include the development of improved method...

To enhance the activity of seminoprotein single‑chain variable fragment (γ‑Sm‑ScFv) antibodies, modulation of the length of the linker peptide, which connects the variable region of the heavy chain (VH) and the light chain (VL) of single‑chain antibodies, was performed in the present study. Homologous modeling of single VH and VL were performed, respectively. Subsequently, modeling of the whole...

The crystal structure of a mutant form of the single-chain fragment (scFv), derived from the monoclonal anti-His tag antibody 3D5, in complex with a hexahistidine peptide has been determined at 2.7 A resolution. The peptide binds to a deep pocket formed at the interface of the variable domains of the light and the heavy chain, mainly through hydrophobic interaction to aromatic residues and hydr...

Purpose We tested the ability of an antibody fragment with specificity for vascular endothelial growth factor-B (VEGF-B) to regress nascent and established corneal blood vessels in the rat. Methods A single chain variable antibody fragment (scFv) with specificity for VEGF-B was engineered from the 2H10 hybridoma. Binding to rat, mouse, and human VEGF-B was confirmed by surface plasmon resonan...

T-cell immunotherapy is a promising strategy to treat cancer, but its efficacy, complexity, and costs may pose challenges. In this study, we report the results of an investigation of a new approach to selectively activate a T-cell attack against tumor cells. The immunotherapeutic approach we developed utilizes a bifunctional fusion protein that binds tumor cells through NK (natural killer)-acti...

Single-chain variable fragment (scFv) is a class of engineered antibodies generated by the fusion of the heavy (VH) and light chains (VL) of immunoglobulins through a short polypeptide linker. ScFv play a critical role in therapy and diagnosis of human diseases, and may in fact also be developed into a potential diagnostic and/or therapeutic agent. However, the fact that current scFv antibodies...

In addition to Ag recognition, some Abs are capable of killing target organisms in the absence of phagocytes and complement. In this study, we report that an anti-Pseudomonas aeruginosa O6ad LPS IgG(1), tobacco-expressed human S20 IgG(1) (te-hS20), as well as its recombinant Fab and single-chain variable fragment (scFv) fragments have cellular- and complement-independent bactericidal activity. ...

Streptococcus gordonii, an oral commensal organism, is a candidate vector for oral-vaccine development. Previous studies have shown that recombinant S. gordonii expressing heterologous antigens was weakly immunogenic when delivered intranasally. In this study, antigen was specifically targeted to antigen-presenting cells (APC) in order to potentiate antigen-APC interactions and increase the hum...

Means to prevent thrombus extension and local recurrence remain suboptimal, in part because of the limited effectiveness of existing thrombolytics. In theory, plasminogen activators could be used for this purpose if they could be anchored to the vascular lumen by targeting stably expressed, noninternalized determinants such as platelet-endothelial-cell adhesion molecule 1 (PECAM-1). We designed...