Recombinant antibodies for in vivo use

Traditional monoclonal antibodies created using hybridoma technology are produced by fusing a B cell from an immunized animal with an immortalized myeloma cell. While this process produces highly specific and consistent monoclonal antibodies it does have some drawbacks. Hybridoma cells are susceptible to genetic drift, gene loss, and gene mutations which can result in slight changes in binding specificity and antibody affinity over time. While Bio X Cell’s optimized antibody manufacturing process utilizes multiple measures to avoid hybridoma genetic drift and lot to lot variability as much as is achievable, some level is unavoidable. Further, since traditional hybridomas are created using immunized animals (typically rats or hamsters) the species of the antibody cannot be altered. This can be problematic when the species of the antibody does not match the species of the experimental animal. For example, injecting rat IgG into a mouse repeatedly over the time course of an experiment has the potential to induce an immune response against the injected antibody in the mouse leading to reduced antibody effectiveness and/or a hypersensitivity reaction. Recombinant antibodies do not suffer from these drawbacks.