Table 1.

Comparison of phage display with other in vitro antibody screening techniques

	Phage display	Ribosome display (99)	Yeast display (100)	Single B cell screening (101)
Source	Immune or non-immune donor/synthetic	Immune donor
Screening size	Up to 1011	Up to 1014	Up to 109	Up to 106
Antibody format	ScFv/Fab/sdAb	ScFv	Fab or IgG	IgG
Pros	Robust. Requires minimal instrumentations. Non-physiological and stringent selection conditions possible due to phage stability at pH/temperature extremes.	Cell-free expression and high concentration of ribosome particles permits extremely large practical library sizes. Compulsory PCR step convenient for mutagenesis.	Eukaryotic expression permits proper disulphide bridge formation and N-linked glycosylation. Direct quantitative monoclonal analysis by flow cytometry.	Isolation of naturally paired VH-VL immunoglobulin genes that have gone through affinity maturation.
Cons	Lacks post-translational modification of antibody fragments.	Requires optimization due to relative instability of RNA– ribosomal complex.	Smaller library size compared to phage/ribosome display.	Labour intensive and technically challenging. Smallest library size.
Affinity maturation	Can be performed in vitro.	Can be used to select for high- affinity binders.	Can be used to select for high-affinity binders during FACS sorting.	Not required.