Selection of human anti-hapten antibodies from semisynthetic libraries

Semisynthetic human Fab libraries were constructed, displayed on the surface of filamentous phage and selected for binding to three hapten conjugates. A number of Fabs were isolated and characterized with respect to affinity and specificity. Fabs exhibited affinities of between 80 and 29 nM, as determined by surface plasmon resonance, for the conjugate on which they were selected. Conservation of Asp101 in the third heavy-chain complementarity determining region (HCDR3) appears to be important in the construction of synthetically diverse repertoires.