Biology Health and Diseases - Producing monoclonal antibodies

How are monoclonal antibodies produced?

Produced from lots of clones of a single B - lymphocyte. Therefore all the antibodies are identical and will only target one specific protein antigen.

How can we mass produce monoclonal antibodies?

We can fuse a mouse B-lymphocyte with a tumour (myeloma) cell, to create a hybridoma cell. These hybridoma cells can be cloned to get lots of identical cells.

Explain the steps fully on how to produce monoclonal antibodies

1. Inject mouse with chosen antigen. Get fast-dividing tumour cells from the lab

2. B - lymphocytes taken from mouse.

3. B- lymphocytes from mouse and myeloma (tumour) cell fused to make a hybridoma

   1. The hybridoma divides quickly to produce lots of clones that produce the monoclonal antibodies.

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