The Production of Engineered Antibodies against Ion Channel Proteins

Dear Colleagues,

Since the advent of Hybridoma Technology in the late 1970s, the production of antibodies has had a great impact both in the diagnostic and clinical field. Despite the undeniable therapeutic advantages brought by antibodies, presently used widely in the clinic for a variety of diseases including cancer, the need of more versatile tools has grown exponentially. The response to this need has been the development of recombinant antibodies, as they conjugate the targeting specificity with the advantage of their small size. In this field, several different formats have been developed, spacing from mono- to bi-specificity (e.g., scFv, scDb). In parallel, the need for new targets has profoundly arisen, and ion channels are now established as a class of proteins involved in several physiological and pathological conditions and are widely considered as prospective targets.

So far, novel possibilities have been opened up by the use of recombinant antibodies for novel clinical approaches both in therapy and diagnostics. Moreover, they offer the possibility of conjugation with other moieties and specific ligands, such as TRAIL. Consequently, engineered antibodies do not only function as simple molecules which retain antigen specificity, but they become real devices to be used for personalized medicine, as well as molecular imaging. In this scenario, the targeting of ion channels can offer several advantages, both from a diagnostic and therapeutic point of view.

This Special Issue is aimed at providing an updated overview of the emerging field of engineered antibodies directed against ion channels, including their production, purification, and functionalization, as well as their application for diagnostic, therapy, targeting, and in vitro and in vivo imaging.

Prof. Annarosa Arcangeli
Dr. Claudia Duranti
Guest Editors

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• engineered antibodies
• ion channels
• ab functionalization
• antibody applications for therapy and diagnostics