Animal models have played an integral role in studying immunological and infectious mechanisms and interventions for several decades. Guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) have historically been a common immunization host for these studies but have only recently been utilized to their potential for antibody engineering applications. At Creative Biolabs, we have expanded the existing phage display toolbox by developing guinea pig derived antibody libraries to open new avenues of antigen recognition and monoclonal antibody development against challenging biomedical targets. By harnessing the immunological novelty of guinea pigs along with our years of experience with phage display library construction platforms, we provide full services for developing high diversity antibody libraries from guinea pigs that can be specifically tailored to recognize rare, highly conserved, or weakly immunogenic epitopes. This service is well suited for scientists working with neurobiology, infectious disease, and complex membrane proteins.
Therapeutic and diagnostic antibody discovery is an area that is consistently evolving with the adoption of new technologies and integration of novel reagents. With this in mind, guinea pigs have become a common yet often overlooked immunization host in antibody discovery projects. Guinea pigs are immunologically distinct from mice and rats, possessing their own repertoire of antibodies that can recognize epitopes unrecognizable by the humoral response of other commonly used small animals. In particular, highly conserved mammalian protein targets or antigens with only small post-translational modifications like phosphorylation, acetylation or subtle conformational differences (in the case of membrane proteins) may be more readily recognized by the guinea pig immune system. Guinea pig heavy-chain variable regions use a distinct pattern of V(D)J recombination, and the resulting structural differences from those of mouse, rat or human are accompanied by a broader distribution of lengths and sequence variability in the complementarity-determining region (CDR), which in turn can be leveraged to achieve antibodies against cryptic or weakly immunogenic epitopes. It has also been noted that guinea pig antibodies display a strong preference to recognize conformational and discontinuous epitopes, an important consideration when targeting structurally intricate proteins such as ion channels, GPCRs, or viral envelope glycoproteins.
Moreover, being evolutionarily further removed from both mice and humans, guinea pigs can elicit a strong immune response against human proteins that are poorly immunogenic in mice, making them an attractive host to generate anti-human antibodies for translational studies, human disease models, and preclinical diagnostics. Guinea pigs are also relatively easy to handle and maintain in laboratory settings, and their larger body size allows for more sera and lymphoid tissue to be collected for downstream B cell isolation and RNA extraction for full repertoire capture. This makes them a strong platform to construct immune phage display libraries with rich functional diversity and the ability to produce high-affinity binders for both research and biopharmaceutical applications.
Creative Biolabs offers a full-service platform for custom guinea pig antibody library construction and screening that can be tailored to the needs of each project. Each library project is customized to the antigen type (protein, peptide, membrane), the preferred library format (Fab or scFv) and downstream applications. The basic workflow is as follows:
Creative Biolabs also provides access to a comprehensive solution for the discovery of native guinea pig monoclonal antibodies through our Native™ Guinea Pig Antibody Discovery Platform. By combining antigen-specific B cell sorting and cytometry-based screening, the platform allows for direct retrieval of naturally paired heavy and light chains from guinea pig B cells. The platform also enables large-scale isolation of antibody candidates that have undergone in vivo affinity maturation to yield the final antibodies with superior specificity and binding affinity.
At Creative Biolabs, we know that every antibody engineering project is different. This is particularly true when working with unique targets and less well-characterized species, such as guinea pigs. Our team of scientists with hands-on experience and cutting-edge phage display platforms, along with a deep immunological understanding, are poised to develop antibody libraries from guinea pigs with the highest diversity and affinity that are fully tailored to your individual project needs. Our guinea pig antibody library construction by phage display service provides a robust, flexible, and fully customizable solution to help your research team overcome the obstacles of antibody discovery. today to talk more about your project's goals, timeline, and technical needs. Let's work together to turn guinea pig immunology into actionable antibody leads, on time and on budget.
Please kindly note that our services can only be used to support research purposes (Not for clinical use).
Creative Biolabs is a globally recognized phage company. Creative Biolabs is committed to providing researchers with the most reliable service and the most competitive price.
