antibodies for single sugars?

[Leslie Confer]

In article <DLHMw7.EAz at cunews.carleton.ca>,
   nbatada at chat.carleton.ca (Nizar Batada) wrote:
>
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to know if it is possible to produce antibodies
> that will recognize different sugars, eg glucose, mannose, sialic 
> acid etc. Are antibodies too big to recognize single sugars that 
> have been separated on polyacrylamide gel? Any input will be much 
> appreciated.
>
> Nizar
>

In my opinion, it would be very difficult to produce an antibody 
(at least by standard immunization and cloning techniques) to single 
sugars, since these occur naturally (or can be metabolized) in most 
higher level organisms.  Antibodies are produced in response to an 
antigen recognized as non-self (with certain exceptions in autoimmune 
responses).  It may be possible to produce "custom antibodies" by 
protein engineering techniques, but I don't know of anyone currently 
doing this.

Les