Use of monoclonal antibodies for discrimination between natural and recombinant human interferon-tau.

Different monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) were raised against denaturated and native recombinant human Interferon-tau (IFN-tau). This approach gave us MAbs which recognized either N-term (prepared with SDS-denaturated IFN-tau) or C-terminal part of the antigen as well as MAbs which linked to non linear epitopes (obtained with native form of IFN-tau). Some of them inhibited or enhanced their respective binding to IFN-tau. After characterization, these antibodies were used as probes and some were selected to prepare two quantitative sensitive sandwich IRMAs able to discriminate between recombinant and natural IFN-tau.