Bacteriophage display: Peptide libraries and drug discovery

Filamentous bacteriophage can be utilized to display random peptides, cassette mutagenized proteins, or antibodies. Complex bacteriophage display libraries are easily synthesized and screened for binding to target molecules. Target binding bacteriophage are isolated by affinity selection and then amplified via infection of Escherichia coli. After several rounds of enrichment and amplication, the identity of the peptides, cassettes, or antibodies that bind to the target is readily obtained by DNA sequence analysis. This technology has introduced a new dimension to drug screening in that it offers easy access to a large sequence space. The goal of this review is to summarize technological advances and applications of the bacteriophage display systems.