Generating DNA Synbodies from Previously Discovered Peptides

Synbody building: We demonstrate how off-the-shelf peptides can be transformed into high affinity protein capture reagents that mimic the recognition properties of natural antibodies (see figure). The designer synthetic antibody amplifies the binding affinity of the individual peptides by ∼1000-fold to bind Grb2 with a Kd of 2 nM, and functions with high selectivity in conventional pull-down assays from HeLa cell lysates.