Antibody mimetics: the next generation antibody engineering, a
retrospective and prospective analysis
Abstract
Antibody mimetics is a novel antibody engineering approach after the
development of polyclonal, monoclonal antibodies, and genetically
engineered antibody fragments. Inspired by the structure and function of
natural antibodies, antibody mimetics offer many advantages over
conventional antibodies and can be constructed by protein-directed
evolution, peptide design and synthesis, or fusion of
complementarity-determining regions through intervening framework
regions. A series of parent protein/peptide structures and technical
roadmaps have been established to induce better recognising properties,
superior affinity, stability, penetrability, and cost-effectiveness of
the designed mimetics. This article aims to summarise the evolution of
antibody mimetics engineering, illustrate the highlights and hotpots in
this research field using scientometric analysis, and give an
anticipatory analysis on this increasing research topic.