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Is there a way to inhibit an antibody response to a specific antigen using immunosupression? I am interested in reducing the anti-antibody formation to animal antibodies such as murine antibodies in antisera.

I have read that there are ways to decrease the immune response to antisera but haven't found a detailed paper on how they work.

Update 12/3/2014: Would this work? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374127/pdf/0100491.pdf Although it is streptavidin, could a similar process be used for antibodies?

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    $\begingroup$ Related post $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG
    Dec 3, 2014 at 6:14
  • $\begingroup$ Are you asking about in vitro or in vivo? $\endgroup$ Dec 3, 2014 at 7:41
  • $\begingroup$ in vivo... if possible... $\endgroup$
    – TanMath
    Dec 3, 2014 at 17:54
  • $\begingroup$ As far as I know there is no way, except for suppressing the immune response at all. If it were possible, this would be a great help against autoimmune diseases. $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Dec 4, 2014 at 7:27

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If you are referring to reducing the titer in the immunized animal, you could give the animal a drug that has immunosuppressive properties. Velcade (PS-341) is a drug that effectively reduces plasma cell counts. There are many immunosuppressive drugs available.

If you want to reduce the antibodies affinity, you are undertaking a much more delicate process. Affinity can be transiently affected by introducing a unfavorable environment for the antibody. You can accomplish this by changing the temp, salt conditions, pH or introducing a denaturing agent like guanidine HCL.

Changing any of these conditions in just a little excess could also result in a permanent reduction in affinity.

If you are attempting to tailor the affinity constant of the Ab by changing the architecture of the antigen, you are correct this can be done using site directed mutagenesis. However I think it would be more effective to perform a random mutagenesis and then screen the mutants for the Ka value you want.

Lastly the antigen could also be post-translationally modified. After performing in vitro transcription and translation you could modify your antigen using different strategies such as ubiquination, phosphorylation, prenylation etc... All these could potentially affect Ka as well.

A Hybridoma system to produce a monoclonal antibody should also be explored. Here is a reputable company that produces monoclonal antibodies:

http://www.sdix.com/Products/Custom-Antibody-Services/Ab-Production-and-Services/mAb-Antibody-Development/Hybridoma-Development.aspx

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  • $\begingroup$ Hello @rhill45 , I did read about reducing immune response to an antiserum so I would like more info on that.. but otherwise, thanks for the info... BTW, can site directed mutagenesis and ubiquination, phosphorylation, prenylation etc. be used to change the Fc region of an antibody? Can it also be used to chimerize the antibody? $\endgroup$
    – TanMath
    Dec 4, 2014 at 22:49
  • $\begingroup$ @TAbraham check this out m.peds.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/4/289 $\endgroup$
    – rhill45
    Dec 4, 2014 at 23:01
  • $\begingroup$ Chimerize the ab?? To the antigen? What are you trying to do? $\endgroup$
    – rhill45
    Dec 4, 2014 at 23:04
  • $\begingroup$ I am trying to decrease the immune response to foreign antibodies (this is why i was talking about anti-sera) so the antigen would be the foreign antibody... $\endgroup$
    – TanMath
    Dec 5, 2014 at 18:37
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    $\begingroup$ Let us continue this discussion in chat. $\endgroup$
    – TanMath
    Dec 11, 2014 at 0:25

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