title: Monospecific polyclonal anti-anti-idiotypic antibodies to the carboxyterminal undecapeptide of the SV40 large tumour antigen.
abstract: The murine monoclonal antibody PAb1605 defines an epitope, peptide Lys(698)-Thr(708) (KT), on the carboxyterminus of the tumour(T)antigen of SV40-transformed cells. In vivo and in vitro experiments had shown that this sequence represents an epitope for both humoral and cellular immune responses. When injected into rabbits PAb1605 induces anti-idiotypic antibodies (Ab-2). Ab-2 beta (internal image type) was purified by adsorption chromatography and characterized by the ability of KT to compete with the binding of ab-2 with ab-1. Murine anti-anti-idiotypic antibodies (ab-3) were obtained by immunization of mice with ab-2 beta. Both ab-1 and ab-3 JgG showed affinities to immunoprecipitated SV40 T antigen by immunoblot analysis and to nuclear SV40 T antigen by the immunofluorescence assay. The binding of ab-3 to SV40 T antigen was completely inhibited by competition with KT. We conclude that the polyclonal ab-3 is of the ab-3 subtype and specific for only one epitope which is represented by KT and defined by ab-1. The results demonstrate that the specificity for a defined peptide epitope of an antibody was conserved even after two consecutive steps of anti-idiotypic-antibody formation in two host species. Since this postulate of network theory could be verified for a sequence of a tumour-associated antigen which represents a B- and T cell epitope, this model is of great interest for further tumour immunological studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, University of Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: H T
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Agostini
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gerstenecker
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Haessler
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Brandner
authors.forename: R D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Hess
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000888:Antibodies, Anti-Idiotypic / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000276:immunology*; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000276:immunology*; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D000952:Antigens, Polyomavirus Transforming / Q000276:immunology*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology; D005260:Female; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique; D015151:Immunoblotting; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011817:Rabbits; D013539:Simian virus 40 / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000888:Antibodies, Anti-Idiotypic; D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D000952:Antigens, Polyomavirus Transforming; D000939:Epitopes