Auto-antibodies in mouse, how frequent?

[Troels Wind]

Dear netters,

I'm currently epitope-mapping a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that
recognises a human plasma protein. Panning with phage displayed peptide
repertoires suggests that the epitope can be located in one of two
regions of the molecule, of which one is completely conserved between
mouse and man.

My question is, how "likely" is it, that a mouse will elicit a
immune-response to a human protein, that results in mAb's with
cross-species reactivity to its own proteins? Any examples of such
mAb's, with refs, are welcome!


Thanks in advance,

Troels Wind
Aarhus University
Denmark