Phage display-based on-slide selection of tumor-specific antibodies on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human tissue biopsies

• Selection of specific antibodies by panning against FFPE tissue slides.
• Selected antibodies recognize cell surface antigens.
• Produced recombinant immunotoxins revealed cytotoxicity against SCLC cell lines.
• Selected antibodies might be suitable for diagnostic and therapeutic approach.

Phage display is an effective method for the generation of target-specific human antibodies. Standard phage display panning use purified proteins, antigen-transfected cells or tumor cell lines as target structure to generate specific antibodies. However, recombinant proteins can be difficult to express and purify in their native conformation and suitable cell lines are not always available. Additionally the antigen expression profile may change during cultivation and thus differ from the malignant cells in patient. Here we describe a method for the selection of specific antibodies from phage display libraries by panning against formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue biopsies immobilized on glass slides, using small cell lung cancer (SCLC) as a case study. The human Tomlinson single-chain variable fragment (scFv) phage libraries I and J were panned against SCLC FFPE tissue slides for positive selection and healthy lung tissue for subtraction. The specificity of the selected scFv antibodies was confirmed in vitro by ELISA on immobilized SCLC cell membranes, by flow cytometry using the SCLC cell lines NCI-H69, NCI-H82 and DMS 273, and ex vivo against tissue microarrays containing 35 different SCLC samples and 20 types of normal organs. We monitored the internalization of three selected scFv antibodies and fused them with Pseudomonas exotoxin A (ETA′) to produce immunotoxins whose cytotoxicity was confirmed by cell viability and apoptosis assays on different SCLC cell lines, achieving IC50 values of up to 23 nM. The selection of SCLC-specific scFv antibodies by panning against FFPE tissue slides circumvents the challenges of using purified antigens or cell lines for antibody selection.