A question on phage expression systems

[Keith Rand]

In article <henry.12.000DEA04 at whio.lincoln.ac.nz>,
henry at whio.lincoln.ac.nz (Hayden Henry) wrote:

> Hi all! I'm writing an essay on phage expression of scFV (single chain 
> antibody variable region fragments), and I have a question.
> 
> The primary question is: Can the phage be correctly packaged in a 
> bacteria, without ANY phage pillus?   
> 
> The background to this question is as follows: 
> In the early papers e.g. McCafferty et al., Nature 348, 552-554, they 
> inserted a synthetic sequence they wanted to express, into an fd-CAT1 
> vector and interrupted the coat protein III gene (though if you look at the 
> diagram it has incorrectly been labelled a coat protein VIII gene!). The 
> idea was that they could transfect this into an E.coli and express a phage 
> with the scFV attached on the phage surface.

I see that someone's already answered your questions, but I thought I
should defend the McCafferty paper - the diagram looks correct to me, and
the confusion is probably because gene VIII and gene III are close
together.

-- 
Keith Rand,  Sydney Australia