DECODE Enables High-throughput Mapping of Antibody Epitopes at Single Amino Acid Resolution

Overview

Journal PLoS Biol

Date 2025 Jan 23

PMID 39847587

Authors

Katsuhiko Matsumoto

Shoko Y Harada

Shota Y Yoshida

Ryohei Narumi

Tomoki T Mitani

Saori Yada

Aya Sato

Eiichi Morii

Yoshihiro Shimizu

Hiroki R Ueda

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Antibodies are extensively used in biomedical research, clinical fields, and disease treatment. However, to enhance the reproducibility and reliability of antibody-based experiments, it is crucial to have a detailed understanding of the antibody's target specificity and epitope. In this study, we developed a high-throughput and precise epitope analysis method, DECODE (Decoding Epitope Composition by Optimized-mRNA-display, Data analysis, and Expression sequencing). This method allowed identifying patterns of epitopes recognized by monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies at single amino acid resolution and predicted cross-reactivity against the entire protein database. By applying the obtained epitope information, it has become possible to develop a new 3D immunostaining method that increases the penetration of antibodies deep into tissues. Furthermore, to demonstrate the applicability of DECODE to more complex blood antibodies, we performed epitope analysis using serum antibodies from mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). As a result, we were able to successfully identify an epitope that matched the sequence of the peptide inducing the disease model without relying on existing antigen information. These results demonstrate that DECODE can provide high-quality epitope information, improve the reproducibility of antibody-dependent experiments, diagnostics and therapeutics, and contribute to discover pathogenic epitopes from antibodies in the blood.

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