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Title

 

Bioinformatics in molecular immunology laboratories demonstrated: Modeling an anti-CMV scFv antibody

 

Authors

 

Chua Kek Heng1* and Rofina Yasmin Othman2

 

Affiliation

1Department of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Malaysia; 2Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of science, University of Malaya, Malaysia

 

E-mail*

 

khchua@um.edu.my; * Corresponding author

 

Article Type

 

Hypothesis

 

Date

 

received February 4, 2006; accepted March 20, 2006; published online March 27, 2006

 

Abstract

 

A scFv (single chain variable fragment) antibody clone from anti-CMV (anti-cucumber mosaic virus) was successfully constructed from immunized mouse and the DNA sequence was submitted to GenBank (AY337618 and AY337619). The expression of a 32 kDa recombinant antibody in bacteria was verified using ELISA (enzyme-linked immunoassay) and western blot. However, elucidation of specific anti-CMV scFv function requires detailed and time consuming immuno-assays. Alternatively, useful functional information on anti-CMV scFV antibody can be obtained using available Bioinformatics tools and techniques without performing tedious assays. Here, we use the commonly used Bioinformatics tools and databases such as BLAST (basic local alignment search tool), GenBank, PDB (protein databank), KABAT numbering, SWISS-MODEL and Insight II to gain specific functional insights into anti-CMV scFv.

 

Keywords

 

anti-CMV scFv; sequencing; GenBank; homology modeling; CDR; epitopes

 

Citation

 

Chua & Othman, Bioinformation 1(4): 118-120 (2006)

 

Edited by

 

Y. Z. Chen

 

ISSN

 

0973-2063

 

Publisher

 

Biomedical Informatics

 

License

 

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.