Human monoclonal Fab fragments from a combinatorial library prepared from an individual with a low serum titer to a virus.

An IgG1k lambda Fab library was generated on the surface of phage beginning with bone marrow RNA from a healthy 22-year-old human donor. The donor had been immunized to measles in his early childhood but had only a low serum titer to a measles antigen preparation. The resulting library of approximately 10(7) clones was panned against the measles antigen preparation and three positive Fab-producing clones identified by ELISA. One of the Fabs was found to be specific to measles and to bind with high apparent affinity (10(8) M-1). The other two bind with lower affinity and show marked cross-reactivity with a number of other antigens. They possess heavy chains derived, with extensive somatic modification, from the single member gene family VH6. The study indicates that both high-affinity specific antibodies and lower affinity polyreactive antibodies can be derived from the library approach under appropriate conditions.