
The immunoglobulins of the Camelidae family belonging to subclasses IgG2 and IgG3 consist of heavy chains only. The lack of light chains is caused by a point mutation in the heavy-chain gene, resulting in the loss of the splice consensus signal and the removal of the entire CH1 domain together with introns. The heavy-chains antibodies also contain longer hinge regions and conservative amino-acid substitutions in the framework regions. Despite the lack of light chains, the heavy-chain antibodies reveal normal antigen binding ability and effector functions. The heavy-chain antibodies are relatively easy to clone and possess good stability, high specificity, low molecular weight, and the ability to recognize unique epitopes. Possible areas of application of heavy-chain antibodies include their use as in vivo imaging reagents and sources of peptide-based drugs.
Species Specificity, Peptide Library, Immunoglobulin G, Molecular Sequence Data, Animals, Humans, Amino Acid Sequence, Camelids, New World
Species Specificity, Peptide Library, Immunoglobulin G, Molecular Sequence Data, Animals, Humans, Amino Acid Sequence, Camelids, New World
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