9^th European Immunology Conference associated with Antibody Engineering Meeting

Intracellular antibodies can be used to knock down virtually every intracellular protein and desired epitope. ER intrabodies expressed as scFv’s in the ER are capable to inhibit proteins passing the ER, such as cell surface receptors, intracellular receptors, Golgi located or secretory proteins. In addition to this inhibitory machinery, cytosolic and nuclear proteins can be inhibited by single domain antibodies comprising only the variable domain of the heavy chain derived from camels or sharks. Mouse tumor models with ER and cytosolic intrabodies provided evidence that intrabodies have the potential to inhibit tumor growth in vivo. The main challenge today is to target the intrabody gene or intrabody protein specifically and efficiently to the tumor cells. New improvements of cell-specific adeno-associated viruses and cell-specific nanoparticles are promising and might pave the way to translate intrabodies into clinics in the next decades