Harnessing Phage Display for the Discovery of Peptide-Based Drugs and Monoclonal Antibodies

Phage display is a powerful high-throughput screening technology that presents a large and diverse selection of functional peptides, proteins, or antibody fragments on phage capsid surfaces for affinity determination towards a target of interest. Due to its advantages of a large screening capacity, mass production through fermentation, and straightforward execution, phage display has been widely used in bioengineering and biomedicine, especially for diagnostics and therapeutics. With the advent of next-generation sequencing and microfluidics technologies, phage display has become an even more powerful and popular tool for drug discovery and development. Here, we briefly review phage display technology and its application to drug discovery, including the discovery and development of peptide-based drugs and monoclonal antibodies. Combined with the emerging proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTAC), we also discuss the advantages and future directions, aiming to facilitate drug discovery and development.