Application of Commercial Monoclonal Antibodies to Lewis Typing of Forensic Samples

Sensitivity and specificity of commercially available Lewis typing monoclonal antibodies were examined for application to forensic blood typing. We have evaluated six pairs of the commercial monoclonal antibodies (anti-Lea and anti-Leb) by using the hemagglutination test and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Only one antibody could clearly detect Lewis type from erythrocytes by the hemagglutination test. Two antibodies could exactly detect Lewis blood type from saliva and semen by the ELISA method. Other four antibodies gave cross-reaction to Le(a-b-) type (secretor) body fluids. This result suggested that we need to select suitable monoclonal antibodies of Lewis typing for each evidential sample and each blood typing method.