Antibody nomenclature

[Andrew Martin]

Andrew Wallace (bcg0197 at queens-belfast.ac.uk) wrote:
: In article <1996May20.103007.18684 at leeds.ac.uk>, bmbrl at biovax.leeds.ac.uk writes:
: > I was wondering if anyone out there knows how best to describe antibodies 
: > raised to synthetic peptides.  I know that the general description is 
[...]
: > Basically, they are polyclonal antibodies but as they are raised to discrete 
: > regions of the protein of interest (in my case approx. 15 residues) they can
: >  be considered to recognise a single antigenic determinant. Therefore, I call 
: > them "monospecific polyclonal antibodies".  However, somebody has pointed out 
: > the possible confusion this generates, as it implies the antibodies recognise 
: > an antigen that is present in only a single species of animal (monospecific). 
: > Would "monovalent polyclonal antibodies" be a better description??
: > Thanks in advance
: > Rob
:       How about epitope-directed antibodies?
[...]
:       Andrew Wallace, Ph.D.
:       School of Biology and Biochemistry
:       The Queen's University of Belfast           Tel. +44-1232-335786
[...]

Hmmm, definitely not "monovalent"; an intact antibody is divalent as it has
two Fab fragments with two binding sites, so this would definitely lead
to confusion. Personally I wouldn't have been confused by your original
idea of "monospecific polyclonal antibodies". I come from the structural
side of antibodies so always view antibodies as interacting with an
epitope; if that epitope is expressed in different species, I don't
really care...

What about "single-epitope polyclonal antibodies"

:       Andrew Wallace, Ph.D.
:       School of Biology and Biochemistry
:       The Queen's University of Belfast           Tel. +44-1232-335786

You might be interested in the antibodies area of my Web page:

http://www.biochem.ucl.ac.uk/~martin/antibodies.html



Best wishes,

Andrew


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Dr. Andrew C.R. Martin,         University College London & SciTech Software
EMAIL: martin at biochem.ucl.ac.uk                Tel:(Work) +44(0)171 419 3890
URL: http://www.biochem.ucl.ac.uk/~martin          (Home) +44(0)1372 275775
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