High-Throughput single-cell phenotypic analysis of functional antibody repertoires
Antibodies play an important role ensuring successful protection after vaccination. Upon injection, antigen-binding antibodies are generated to prime the host’s immune system for future encounters with the threat. These responses are highly heterogeneous, with each cell contributing with a single antibody variant to the complexity. Each antibody variant furthermore can recognize a different antigen/epitope with varying specificity and affinity. The immunological function induced is related to those parameters.

Depending on the nature of the threat, required protective functional antibodies vary. Therefore, also each vaccination against those threads needs to trigger a specific functional antibody repertoire. Presently, induced functional antibody repertoires have not yet been studied sufficiently, mostly due to the lack of technologies that enable analysing these repertoires with high enough throughput and resolution. Consequently, the mechanisms behind the evolution of these functional repertoires, and the influence of vaccination on these repertoires remain poorly understood.

An innovative technology combined with a methodical approach to vaccinations will enable the FuncMab research team to generate data sets needed for the understanding of immunological processes that result in different functional antibody repertoires. Herein, antibodies are analysed on the individual cell level in high-throughput using specific bioassays that target various antibody functions and their biophysical parameters, generating high-resolution data. These functional repertoires are followed over time and evolutionary changes can be linked to introduced vaccine variations, allowing a quantitative approach to study the changes within the repertoires. These in-depth data sets will not only allow understanding interactions between vaccine components and their generated immune responses, but also propels this project to the forefront of creating a new generation of successful vaccines