Fig. 2.

General strategy for phage panning. Polyclonal phage expressing recombinant antibodies on their surface is applied to target antigen presented as either immobilized on a magnetic bead, polystyrene surface or on the surface of a whole cell. Phage carrying antigen-binding Fab bind and non-specific Fab are removed through stringent washing. Antigen-bound phage is eluted off either typically through pH change or protease digestion and re-infected into E. coli, from which a new library enriched for antigen-binding clones can be made. After several cycles, the library would be sufficiently enriched so that the individual clones can be isolated from E. coli stock, expressed as monoclonal phage, tested, sequenced and the specific antibodies expressed recombinantly.