Monoclonal antibodies—their diagnostic potential

Considering the long and excellent performance of ‘classical’ immune sera in a range of diagnostic applications, the advent of ‘tailor-made’ highly specific monoclonal antibodies has given even higher hopes of diagnostic accuracy for the future. Understanding what monoclonal antibodies are and how they compare to polyclonal sources of antibodies is absolutely essential in order to appreciate their potential. This paper will briefly focus on the production, characterization and use of monoclonal antibodies and look critically at the future prospects. Specificity and cross-reactivity are key terms which are explained with examples in this paper. It can be anticipated that diagnostic kits in the future will be composite assays using highly specific monoclonals (or oligoclonal cocktails) in conjunction with high-avidity polyclonal sera, thus taking advantage of the best features of both systems.