Abstract
Monoclonal antibodies have become increasingly important in research and diagnosis, and therapeutics. Many antibody preparations are on the market, which has grown to an astounding size. In diagnosis, the use of antibodies has helped to enable early diagnoses of a wide variety of illnesses. The ability to establish antibodies to various types of antigens has accelerated proteomics research. The antibodies with higher affinity and specificity are required in each field, but these needs cannot be met with conventional monoclonal production technology, thus necessitating monoclonal antibody production using recombination technology. The use of recombinant technology enables the production of antibodies to the antigens for which antibodies cannot be produced using conventional production technology. In vitro selection techniques enable screening in the environment in which antibodies are used, thus in turn enabling the establishment of antibodies suited to specific uses. In the production of recombinant monoclonal antibodies, it is important to prepare a highly diverse library in order to identify positive clones using screening technology with little background reaction. The present paper explains screening technology in recombinant monoclonal antibody production, demonstrates the problems and issues in production, and discusses the future outlook of this technology.