The original antibody was isolated from a yeast display library constructed from peripheral B cells from a donor with asymptomatic chronic HCV genotype 2b infection. The donors serum contained a high antibody binding titer (>1∶10,000) to E2 and similarly high neutralizing titers against genotype 2a JFH1 HCVcc and 1a H77C HCVpp. Affinity maturation of the original antibody was done using a yeast display approach to isolate the clones that have improved binding and neutralization activities against HCV isolates.
