M3L3 - Therapeutic antibodies

Monoclonal antibody

This is a heavy-chain and light-chain immunoglobulin crated to target pathways involved in allergy, transplant rejection, autoimmunity, and cancer

Immunoglobulin

This is a super-family of structurally related proteins important for cell communication and immune signalling (antibody, TCR, etc.)

Hybridoma

This is a splenic or lymphatic cell bound to a tumour cell in antibody production

HAT medium

This is a selection medium for mammalian cell culture which selects or successful hybridoma cells

Aminopterin

This is a drug which selectively kills unbound myeloma cells in hybridoma production

Salvage pathway

This is an alternative pathway for DNA production enabled by HAT medium

De novo pathway

This is the traditional pathway of DNA synthesis, blocked by aminopterin

Chimeric antibody

This is a mouse and human-derived antibody with a mouse-derived variable region

Humanised antibody

This is a human-derived antibody with a mouse-derived CDR region, relatively innocuous to the immune system

CDR region

This is a variable region section of the antibody responsible for making contact with an antigen

Anti-drug antibody

This is a protein produced by the immune system when it detects antibody drugs as foreign

Single-chain variable fragment

This is a fusion protein of the variable regions of the heavy and light chains, connected with a short peptide linker (GGGGS)₃

Phage display

This is the random arrays of heavy and light chains cloned into an scFv and fused to a phage coat protein

Protein A

This is used to isolate most clinically approved mAb on an affinity chromatography column, produced by staph. aureus and recombinant in e. coli