Intrabodies as drug discovery tools and therapeutics

Within the biomedical and pharmaceutical communities there is an ongoing need to find new technologies that can be used to elucidate disease mechanisms and provide novel therapeutics. Antibodies are arguably the most powerful tools in biomedical research, and antibodies specific for extracellular or cell-surface targets are currently the fastest growing class of new therapeutic molecules. However, the majority of potential therapeutic targets are intracellular, and antibodies cannot readily be leveraged against such molecules, in the context of a viable cell or organism, because of the inability of most antibodies to form stable structures in an intracellular environment. Advances in recent years, in particular the development of intracellular screening protocols and the definition of antibody structures that retain their antigen-binding function in an intracellular context, have allowed the robust isolation of a subset of antibodies that can function in an intracellular environment. These antibodies, generally referred to as intrabodies, have immense potential in the process of drug development and may ultimately become therapeutic entities in their own right.