Abstract: The present invention relates to the manufacture of a diverse repertoire of functional heavy chain-only antibodies that undergo affinity maturation, and uses thereof. The invention also relates to the manufacture and use of a diverse repertoire of class-specific heavy chain-only antibodies and to the manufacture and use of multivalent polypeptide complexes with antibody heavy chain functionality, preferably antibody heavy chain binding functionality, constant region effector activity and, optionally, additional effector functions. The present invention also relates to a method of generation of fully functional heavy chain-only antibodies in transgenic mice in response to antigen challenge. In particular, the present invention relates to a method for the generation of human antigen-specific, high affinity, heavy chain-only antibodies of any class, or mixture of classes and the isolation and expression of fully functional VH antigen-binding domains.

Abstract: The present invention relates to methods for engineering VH domains to improve their solubility and stability. The invention provides for the incorporation of defined amino acid substitutions based on 3-D structural information into the V segments of a heavy chain locus, expressing the locus in a non-human mammal and selecting soluble VH domains. Further stabilising or solubilising mutations maybe introduced as a result affinity maturation during B-cell maturation in vivo.

Abstract: The present invention relates to the manufacture of mono, di and multivalent polypeptide binding complexes, also mono, di or multispecific polypeptide binding complexes and uses thereof. The invention also relates to the manufacture and use of a diverse repertoire of antigen specific VH binding domains derived from phage display libraries, transgenic animals or natural sources. Preferably the VH binding domains and the dimerisation domains comprise human sequences. The polypeptide binding complexes comprise homo or heterodimerisation domains with four antigen binding [VH] domains fused at the amino and carboxyl termini of the dimerisation domains preferably using natural hinge or linker peptides. Where the polypeptide binding complexes lack CH2-CH3 effector functions they are preferably less than 120 kDa in size. Routes of manufacture are described herein.