RE: monoclonal antibody production

Mike Clark (mrc7@cam.ac.uk)
Fri, 04 Apr 1997 09:52:08 +0000 (GMT)

>From: Meenakshi Roy
>Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 1997 5:30
>To: Cytometry Mailing List
>Subject: monoclonal antibody production
>
>
>Dear flow-ers,
> This is not a directly flow related question. I am planning to produce
>monoclonal antibodies to certain cloned proteins.
> My question is, what form of a protein is most effective for monoclonal
>antibody production? I have been told that fusion proteins dont always
>fold similarly to the native protein. So, monoclonal antibodies that
>recognise the fusion protein, dont always recognise the native protein. On
>the other hand, immunisation with transfectants can result in many
>antibodies that are non-specific to the protein of interest.
> Also, what are the relative merits of HA tagged fusionproetins, or Ig
>chimera fusion proteins, or c-myc tagged fusion protiens for this purpose?
> Any experiences, suggestions shall be highly appreciated,
> Thanks in advance,
>Dr. Meenakshi Roy
>Stanford university
>

In my extensive experience of making monoclonal antibodies to all kinds of
antigens including cell surface antigens, soluble proteins and haptens, it's
not easy to predict what is the best way to immunise, all the methods seem
to work most but not all of the time! However the really crucial step to get
right is the screening assay. I've written many times in the past the
philosophy that what you get is what you screen for but not necessarily what
you want! For example if you desire monoclonal antibodies which see a native
antigen on the cell surface and you have immunised with a fusion protein,
then just screening by ELISA on the immunogen is wrong and you obviously
want to do your screening on cells expressing the antigen. If you have the
antigen in different forms, eg as a fusion protein, on transfectants and
also as a native molecule, then use one to immunise and the others to screen
on. This can help to eliminate monoclonal antibodies against contaminants or
cross reacting antigens.

Mike Clark, mrc7@cam.ac.uk http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/

-- 
  o/ \\    //            ||  ,_ o   Dr. M.R. Clark, Division of Immunology
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   `    ||  (_)/ (_)  //    \\ \_   Tel. 01223 333705  Fax. 01223 333875


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