Nanobodies: a promising approach to treatment of viral diseases

Front Immunol. 2024 Jan 23:14:1303353. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1303353. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Since their discovery in the 1990s, heavy chain antibodies have garnered significant interest in the scientific community. These antibodies, found in camelids such as llamas and alpacas, exhibit distinct characteristics from conventional antibodies due to the absence of a light chain in their structure. Furthermore, they possess a single antigen-binding domain known as VHH or Nanobody (Nb). With a small size of approximately 15 kDa, these Nbs demonstrate improved characteristics compared to conventional antibodies, including greater physicochemical stability and enhanced biodistribution, enabling them to bind inaccessible epitopes more effectively. As a result, Nbs have found numerous applications in various medical and veterinary fields, particularly in diagnostics and therapeutics. Advances in biotechnology have made the production of recombinant antibodies feasible and compatible with large-scale manufacturing. Through the construction of immune phage libraries that display VHHs and subsequent selection through biopanning, it has become possible to isolate specific Nbs targeting pharmaceutical targets of interest, such as viruses. This review describes the processes involved in nanobody production, from hyperimmunization to purification, with the aim of their application in the pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: VHH; camelids; heavy chain antibodies; immune library; neutralizing antibodies; phage display; single domain antibodies.

Publication types

  • Review
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antibodies / metabolism
  • Epitopes / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Single-Domain Antibodies*
  • Tissue Distribution
  • Virus Diseases*

Substances

  • Single-Domain Antibodies
  • Antibodies
  • Epitopes

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. We thank the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP Grant ID 2021/11936-3) for the financial support and the institutions to which the present authors are affiliated. RF is a CNPq PQ-1D research fellow No. 301608/2022-9. BB is a CNPq PQ-2 research fellow No. 306339/2020-0.