Utrecht Nanobody Facility
The Utrecht Nanobody Facility aims to provide support to academic researchers interested in nanobody technology. We provide advice and expertise for development of new nanobodies or new applications with existing nanobodies. In a collaborative set-up we provide the technology for the selection, production, functionalization, and applications of nanobodies.
Mission
The Utrecht Nanobody Facility (UNF) aims to provide support to academic researchers interested in nanobody technology. We provide advice and expertise for development of new nanobodies or new applications with existing nanobodies. In a collaborative set-up we provide the technology for the selection, production, functionalization, and applications of nanobodies. We offer technology for the functionalization of nanobodies using different site-specific conjugation methods of fluorophores (Alexa, Atto, NIR dyes etc.), drugs, nanoparticles etc. Functionalized nanobodies are excellent tracers for imaging purposes and in collaboration with the Biology Imaging Center we provide for single molecule imaging, super-resolution light microscopy, and in vivo molecular imaging.
Technology
Nanobodies are small antibody fragments (15 kDa) derived from camelid heavy chain antibodies. These single domain antibodies are uniquely adaptable tools. Nanobodies can be selected from (custom built) immune libraries, or alternatively synthetic libraries, using phage display. Extensive equipment is available for the thorough characterization of the nanobodies. Important parameters are production yield, stability, specificity, binding affinity, and selectivity in vivo. Nanobodies can be produced at small scale and equipment is available for the large scale production both from E. coli and HEK cells.
Applications
Nanobodies can be used for different applications, such as stabilization of protein conformation for X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, protein or vesicle purification, in vitro imaging (both light- and electron- microscopy), as biosensors, and for in vivo imaging. Furthermore, nanobodies can be employed for therapeutic applications, for instance: as antagonists, conjugated to drugs for cancer therapy or fibrosis, as antivirals, for targeted protein degradation, conjugated to nanoparticles carrying drugs, or in immune therapies such as nanobody-based T cell engagers or chimeric antigen receptor T cells.
Let’s connect!
Facility managerSabrina Oliveiras.oliveira@uu.nl
Visiting address:Padualaan 83584 CH UtrechtFacility features:
Examples of services
– Production of immune libraries (with QVQ)
– Selection of nanobodies that bind with high specificity and affinity to a target (usually <10 nM)
– Selection of nanobodies from synthetic libraries
– Production and purification at different yield using E. coli or mammalian HEK cells
– Fusion to different tags such as myc, his, EPEA, FLAG, GFP, RFP, among other
– Site-directed conjugation to fluorophores (Alexa, Atto, NIR dyes), biotin or nanoparticles
– Engineering of nanobodies in different formats, including bivalent, bispecific, trivalent, biparatopic