Abterra Biosciences

08/20/2025

Ever wondered whether you are sampling all of the important antibodies in your campaign? Our recent blog post seeks to answer the question of just how much we might be missing.

We compared two innovative approaches for polyclonal antibody sequencing in camelids:
🔵 Alicanto: Uses a proteogenomic workflow, combining B cell NGS data to create targeted databases for serum antibody identification.
🔴 Griffin: Employs a de novo proteomic approach, relying solely on serum without needing cellular data.

Our findings?
👉 Clonal Overlap is Limited: Out of 44 Griffin clones and 146 Alicanto clones, only 2 (4.5%) were shared, highlighting that each method explores largely distinct regions of the antibody repertoire.
👉 Sensitivity: Alicanto uncovers more total candidates due to database-driven sensitivity but only captures what’s present in the B cell database.
👉 Sequence Diversity: Most clones found by Griffin show less than 43% similarity to their nearest B cell repertoire counterparts, revealing previously unexplored antibody diversity.

Takeaway: Combining proteogenomics and de novo proteomics gives a more complete picture of the serum antibody landscape in camelids, empowering new discoveries in antibody engineering and therapeutic development.

Curious to see the full data and methodological insights? Read more in the blog post on our website.

08/18/2025

The fasta2airr web app is a free tool for analyzing antibody clonotype diversity.

The app simplifies the process by automatically annotating germline V and J genes and producing presentation-ready graphics for easy download.

Available for human, mouse, rat, and llama/alpaca species. Which species do you primarily work with for antibody repertoire analysis? 🐁 🦙 🙋

Experience the app for free: https://fasta2airr.abterrabio.com/

08/13/2025

Last week marked 50 years since César Milstein and Georges Köhler's groundbreaking discovery of the hybridoma technique, which gave us monoclonal antibodies! 🎉

Although a defining moment, it’s important to recognize what their specific contribution was and the decades of effort that led to the breakthrough.

Georges Köhler studied myeloma cells to understand the genetics of antibody production, and César Milstein was an expert in cell fusion at MRC Lab, Cambridge. In their pivotal work, “Continuous cultures of fused cells secreting antibody of predefined specificity”, they demonstrated that a myeloma cell line engineered to lack HPRT enzyme could be fused with antibody-producing B cells sourced from the spleen of immunized mice.

What happens is:
1. Normal mouse B cells die off naturally.
2. Culturing in Hypoxanthine, Aminopterin, and Thymidine (HAT) media results in unfused myeloma cells dying off due to blocked DNA production.
3. Further limited dilution of fused cells can be “grown in vitro in massive cultures to provide specific antibody”--monoclonal antibodies.

Key work leading up to the method.
💡 In 1956, Michael Potter at the National Cancer Institute, NIH created plasmocytomas from BALB/c mice, including the MOPC-21 line.
💡 In 1964, John W. Littlefield at Harvard worked on drug-resistant markers in hybrid cells, and engineered the HPRT-deficient myeloma line.
💡 In 1973, Cotton and Milstein showed fusion of two antibody-producing cell lines can produce antibodies of both kinds.

Milstein and Köhler’s brilliant work has become a cornerstone of modern medicine. From targeted cancer therapies to autoimmune disease treatments and countless diagnostic tests, the impact is undeniable.

It's also important to recognize that such breakthroughs are the result of many years of collaborative effort and persistence – a lesson that we should continue to aspire to.

08/11/2025

It shouldn't be a headache to annotate your antibody - determining CDRs, germline genes, mutations, and more.

We're rolling out our second free web app - ab2annotation - for easy annotation of your antibody sequence.

Key features:
👉 Germline V(D)J alignment and mutation calling
👉 CDR1, 2 and 3 identification
👉 Flag developability issues like N glycans, odd cysteines, oxidation sites, charge patches, and hydrophobicity throughout the variable region.

➡️ Try ab2annotation for free: https://ab2annotation.abterrabio.com/

04/21/2023

Last month we moved into our new space in Sorrento Valley. We're excited about our expanded capabilities and are ready to take on your antibody discovery and sequencing projects.

Learn about our move here:

https://abterrabio.com/2023/04/13/abterra-bio-has-moved-to-sorrento-valley/

03/08/2022

Why you should go with NGS instead of Sanger for your hybridoma sequencing? At Abterra Bio, we use NGS for our high-throughput hybridoma sequencing workflow to save you time and money!
Click below to read about the key differences between NGS vs Sanger.

02/28/2022

Given the flexibility of our Reptor workflow, we have put together a blog post showing how Reptor can analyze and compare antibody repertoire across multiple species! Click below to read more!

Abterra Bio uses Reptor’s antibody repertoire analysis workflow to compare and visualize antibodies from both naïve and immunized animals.

02/19/2022

Are you interested in joining the Abterra team? We have openings! Click to see our career opportunities in Sales and Marketing. Apply today if you want to be part of our incredible, innovative, and fun team!

https://abterrabio.com/careers/

02/01/2022

Every day, Abterra Bio is helping companies discover single-domain antibodies for research, diagnostic and therapeutic purposes using our proprietary Alicanto technology. Let us know if you need help!
Check out a recent publication that demonstrates the use of a single-domain antibody in neutralizing SAR-CoV-2, including the beta and delta variants.
https://lnkd.in/gGwysh4V
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27610-z

Here, the authors isolate and characterize a bispecific monomeric nanobody that induces dimerization of SARS-CoV-2 spike trimers, neutralizes variants of concerns as well as SARS-CoV, and inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection in mice.

12/21/2021

The Abterra Bio team would like to wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season. We hope to work with you again in 2022!

11/18/2021

With the use of NGS, our Reptor software was able to analyze the clone diversity during the hybridoma generation process, clone overlap across 3 bulk samples, and relatives of screened hits that can be used for hit expansion. Read our new blog post below!

NGS can provide insight into the diversity immune response and clones that persist from mouse to hybridoma cell line.

10/13/2021

Using our Valens de novo antibody sequencing technology, we were able to cover missing amino acids from a published anti-FLAG M2 antibody sequence. Click below to read more about our case study!

Using our Valens de novo sequencing technology, we were able to recover missing amino acids from a published anti-FLAG M2 antibody sequence.