PARATOPES, EPITOPES, AND MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES

Monoclonal antibodies are a new and effective tool which has been available to immunologists, molecular biology scientists, and even clinicians for 15 years. Although monoclonal antibodies were first used for purposes of diagnosis and purification, they are now finding new usefulness for the determination of epitopes involved in specific immune responses. The immune response has thus been scrutinized and new insight has been gained into the effects of vaccines and clinical treatments. These results do not however, represent a technical end-point. Using molecular biology and genetic engineering techniques, an unlimited spectrum of molecules can be obtained from hybridomas by plasmid-vectored insertions into receptors. Furthermore, the hugh advances achieved in structural immunology have now made it possible to use immune globulin molecule fragments with enhanced specificity. The above-mentioned techniques all approach the immune response from a general standpoint. However, they also have essential contributions to make to the more specific field of immuno-allergology.