An Overview of Mouse Monoclonal Antibody Production

Antibodies are an important tool in the field of diagnostics and therapeutics owing to their affinity to bind with specific antigen. These can be of two types: polyclonal antibodies that are produced by a mixture of various B lymphocyte clones, and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) which are secreted by a single clone of B lymphocytes. mAbs have a higher affinity to the target protein and are highly selective in nature which makes them the best choice for specific purposes. Since the development of hybridoma technology in 1975, a number of mAbs have been developed and are in use for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Besides the recent advances in high throughput mAb generation technologies, hybridoma is the most preferred method due to its nature to maintain the inherent antibody structure and functional information. This chapter focuses on the basics of hybridoma technology including various steps involved in production of mAbs and various critical points which must be considered while generation of monoclonal antibodies.