Redesigning an Antibody Fragment for Faster Association with Its Antigen

Traditional approaches for increasing the affinity of protein-protein complexes focus on constructing highly complementary binding surfaces. Recent theoretical simulations and experimental results suggest that electrostatic steering forces can also be manipulated to increase association rates while leaving dissociation rates unchanged, thus increasing affinity. Here we demonstrate that electrostatic attraction can be enhanced between an antibody fragment and its cognate antigen through application of a few simple rules to identify potential on-rate amplification sites that lie at the periphery of the antigen-antibody interface.