PRODUCTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF MONOCLONAL AND POLYCLONAL ANTIBODY AGAINST RECOMBINANT OUTER MEMBRANE PROTEIN

There are many studies related to immunological and molecular methods for diagnosis of Vibrio cholera (V. cholerae). However, most assays dependent on enrichment of culture of bacteria, which need more time and involves the use of costly equipment and reagents. In this study Balb/c mice were immunized with recombinant Outer Membrane Protein (rOMPw) of vibrio cholerae and splenocytes of hyper immunized mice were fused with murine myeloma Sp2/0 cells. Positive hybridomas were selected by ELISA using rOMPw as coating antigen. The monoclonal antibodies from ascitic fluids were purified and its reaction with rOMPw was assessed by ELISA. Polyclonal antibodies were also produced by immunization of rabbits with the above mentioned antigen. The rabbit sera was affinity purified using Hi-Trap protein G column. The result showed that monoclonal antibody specific to rOMPw has been successfully generated. The monoclonal antibody reacted with recombinant OMPw in ELISA and immunonoblat method. Rabbit polyclonal antibody was also bound to rOMPw by ELISA. The results of agglutination test with whole bacteria also showed that both mouse monoclonal and rabbit polyclonal antibodies reacted with whole vibrio cholera but not other related bacteria. The purpose of this study was to check out if anti OMPw antibodies could use as diagnostic assay for detection of V. cholerae. Our results demonstrated that anti recombinant OMPw monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies are able to diagnose whole bacteria in pure culture using agglutination test but not by home made immunochromatic strip test.