ABSTRACT
Antibodies can be obtained from a number of sources. The original antibodies were obtained from the sera of immunized animals. These polyclonal antibodies were a mixture of different immunoglobulin types binding to multiple sites on the antigen used for immunization. In 1975, Georges Kohler and Cesar Milstein developed the process for creating monoclonal antibodies, of a single immunoglobulin type binding to a single specific site on the antigen used for immunization. They fused antibody-producing mouse B cells, cells with a finite life span, with “immortalized” cells of a mouse myeloma, and selected for the immortalized, antibody producing cells. Each cell, or clone, was capable of producing large amounts of a single type of antibody, that antibody bound to a single epitope. For this work, they shared the Nobel Prize. More recently, the DNA coding for specific antibodies and fragments of antibodies has been introduced into bacteria, yeast, and mammalian cell lines by recombinant molecular genetics techniques. This allows even greater yields of antibodies from cultured cells.
