Production of antibodies by modification of autonomous heavy chain variable domain via gene conversion

ChangeBridge: Patent Grants - Peptides (C07K)

Published March 31st, 2026

Detected March 31st, 2026

Summary

USPTO granted patent US12588664B2 to Crystal Bioscience Inc. on March 31, 2026. The patent covers transgenic animals engineered with B cells that use gene conversion for antibody diversification, involving functional immunoglobulin heavy chain genes and operably linked pseudogenes that donate sequence to enable diversification.

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What changed

USPTO issued Patent No. US12588664B2 to Crystal Bioscience Inc. on March 31, 2026, for a transgenic animal system using gene conversion for antibody diversification. The patent includes 14 claims covering B cells with a functional immunoglobulin heavy chain gene encoding an autonomous heavy chain variable domain and a plurality of pseudogenes operably linked to donate sequence by gene conversion. The system enables upstream or downstream pseudogene donation to diversify antibody sequences.

This is a granted patent announcement with no compliance requirements or deadlines. Companies developing transgenic animal platforms for antibody discovery should review this patent to assess freedom-to-operate considerations. The patent has no enforcement deadlines, penalties, or required actions for general compliance teams.

Source document (simplified)

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Production of antibodies by modification of an autonomous heavy chain variable domain by gene conversion

Grant US12588664B2 Kind: B2 Mar 31, 2026

Assignee

CRYSTAL BIOSCIENCE INC.

Inventors

William Don Harriman, Philip A. Leighton

Abstract

This disclosure provides, among other things, a transgenic animal that uses gene conversion for antibody diversification, comprising B cells in which the endogenous immunoglobulin heavy chain locus comprises: (a) a functional immunoglobulin heavy chain gene comprising a nucleic acid encoding an autonomous heavy chain (AHC) variable domain; and (b) a plurality of pseudogenes that are operably linked to said functional immunoglobulin heavy chain gene and that donate, by gene conversion, nucleotide sequence to the nucleic acid encoding the AHC variable domain of (a), wherein the pseudogenes are upstream or downstream of the functional immunoglobulin heavy chain gene.