IgM antibodies and ugly histos
Steve G. Hilliard (hilliard@cellmate.cb.uga.edu)
Tue, 27 Feb 1996 11:21:05 +0000
It's me again,
I have a question for the immunological wizards on this list:
does anyone have any experience with IgM antibodies? I'm working
with a lab that has an antibody (raised in a species only
distantly related to the species they're using it on), and
it's an IgM subtype. We can get a decent negative: in the first
decade of a four decade log scale, but a bit wide. Unfortunately,
all the positives are simply wider smears out to the 2nd or 3rd
decade, and still overlapping the negative significantly. We know
the cells should be mix of pos/neg, but we never get two distinct
peaks. My first reaction was to suggest titering, but we get the
same sort of behavior at a wide variety of concentrations. Does this
ring a bell with anyone? Does this sound like it just isn't going to
be cross-reactive enough to be useful? Should they give up and try
to make an IgG? If you have any tips, or would like more details or
a look at the histos before commenting, please drop me a line.
We're at our wits end with this one (of course, for me it's been a
short trip! ;-)
thanks in advance,
Steve
*********************************************************
Steve G. Hilliard Cell Analysis Facility
University of Georgia
Surf the FloWeb! <http://www.rserv.uga.edu/cellan/>
*********************************************************