Custom Monoclonal Antibody

Custom Monoclonal Antibody

Monoclonal antibodies (mAb or moAb) are monospecific antibodies that are identical because they are produced by one type of immune cell that are all clones of a single parent cell. Given (almost) any substance, it is possible to create monoclonal antibodies that specifically bind to that substance; they can then serve to detect or purify that substance.

Hybridoma Cell Production

Monoclonal antibodies are typically made by fusing myeloma cells with the spleen cells from a mouse that has been immunized the desired antigen with. However, recent advances have allowed the use of rabbit B-cells. Polyethylene glycol is used to fuse adjacent plasma membranes, but the success rate is low so a selective medium is used in which only fused cells can grow. This is because myeloma cells have lost the ability to synthesize hypoxanthine-guanine-phosphoribosyl transferase.

Protein Micro Array

A protein microarray is a piece of glass on which different molecules of protein have been affixed at separate locations in an ordered manner thus forming a microscopic array. These are used to identify protein-protein interactions, to identify the substrates of protein kinases, or to identify the targets of biologically active small molecules.