Monoclonal antibodies

If one clone of antibody-producing cells could be isolated, then all of the antibody produced from that clone would be identical all antibody molecules in like a monoclonal antibody preparation would bind to the similar antigen epitope.

The difficulty  is that if an individual  antibody-producing cell is grown  in culture and isolated,  its descendants  have  a limited  life-span  which severely  limits their use for the routine preparation  of monoclonal  antibodies.  In  the year 1975, Milstein and  Köhler   formed   how  monoclonal   antibodies   of  almost   any  desired antigen  specificity  can  be produced  indefinitely  and  in large  quantities.  Their technique was to fuse a B lymphocyte producing antibody of the desired specificity with a cell derived from a cancerous lymphocyte tumor, known as a myeloma cell that is immortal.  The  cell  fusion  is known as  a hybridoma,  that  is both immortal  and secretes  the similar  specific  antibody  originally  encoded  through the B lymphocyte.

Monoclonal   antibodies generate using this technology is now general tools in research because of their very high specificity. For instance, they can be used   to locate   particular   molecules   within   cells   or particular   amino   acid sequences within proteins. If they are first bound to an insoluble matrix, they are also extremely useful for binding to and therefore purifying the particular molecule from crude cell extracts or fractions. They are also increasingly of use in medicine, both for diagnosis and as therapeutic tools, for instance to inactivate bacterial toxins and to treat certain forms of cancer.