Seo, Hyo-DeokLee, Joong-JaeKim, Yu JungHantschel, OliverLee, Seung-GooKim, Hak-Sung2017-01-242017-01-242017-01-24201610.1016/j.aca.2016.11.013https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/133256WOS:000390629500021Enzyme-linked immunoassays based on an antibody-antigen interaction are widely used in biological and medical sciences. However, the conjugation of an enzyme to antibodies needs an additional chemical process, usually resulting in randomly cross-linked molecules and a loss of the binding affinity and enzyme activity. Herein, we present the development of an alkaline phosphatase-fused repebody as a new format of immuno-reagent for immunoassays. A repebody specifically binding to human TNF-α (hTNF-α) was selected through a phage display, and its binding affinity was increased up to 49 nM using a modular engineering approach. A monomeric alkaline phosphatase (mAP), which was previously isolated from a metagenome library, was genetically fused to the repebody as a signal generator, and the resulting repebody-mAP fusion protein was used for direct and sandwich immunoassays of hTNF-α. We demonstrate the utility and potential of the repebody-mAP fusion protein as an immuno-reagent by showing the sensitivity of 216 pg mL(-1) for hTNF-α in a sandwich immunoassay. Furthermore, this repebody-mAP fusion protein enabled the detection of hTNF-α spiked in a serum-supplemented medium with high accuracy and reproducibility. It is thus expected that a mAP-fused repebody can be broadly used as an immuno-reagent in immunoassays.Monomeric alkaline phosphataseRepebodyGenetic fusionImmuno-reagentImmunoassaytext::journal::journal article::research article