Affinity maturation of single-chain variable fragment specific for aflatoxin B1 using yeast surface display

As aflatoxin B1 is one of the most toxic mycotoxins, it is important to detect and to quantify aflatoxin B1 accurately by immunological methods. To enhance aflatoxin B1-binding affinity of the single-chain variable fragment, yeast surface display technique combined with fluorescence-activated cell sorting was applied. A randomly mutated scFv library was subjected to 4 rounds of fluorescence-activated cell sorting, resulting in isolation of 5 scFv variants showing an affinity improvement compared to the parental wild type scFv. The best scFv with a 9-fold improvement in affinity for aflatoxin B1 exhibited similar specificity to the monoclonal antibody. Most of the mutations in scFv-M37 were located outside of the canonical antigen-contact loops, suggesting that its affinity improvement might be driven by an allosteric effect inducing scFv-M37 to form a more favorable binding pocket for aflatoxin B1 than the wild type scFv.