Mutagenesis By Phage Display

Chemokines are small chemoattractant proteins involved in the recruitment of leukocytes to the site of inflammation. Due to their prominent role in the inflammatory process, chemokine inhibitors have been developed by parasites to remain undetected not only by the host immune system but also by various laboratories to develop anti-inflammatory compounds. Taking advantage of the small size of natural chemokine-binding proteins, we report here several methods to facilitate their characterization using phage display to identify the chemokine-binding site and to modulate the selectivity of such inhibitors. Interestingly, these methods could be adapted to display the natural inhibitors of other cytokines or even cytokines on phage surface.