NINDS/UC Davis NeuroMab Hybridoma Facility

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The specific aim of this proposal is to develop a comprehensive library of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) optimized for use in the brain (i.e. NeuroMabs) at the NINDS/UC Davis NeuroMab Facility. This proposal is driven by the need to greatly expand the availability of such brain-optimized mAbs for use in basic, translational and clinical neuroscience research. Data are being generated at a rapid rate from high throughput post-genomic approaches addressing molecular mechanisms of brain development, neuronal plasticity, and neurological and psychiatric disorders. The validation of candidate genes as potential targets for further basic research, or for the development of therapeutics, relies on characterization of the protein products of these genes. MAbs against defined gone products can serve as the crucial bridge between the inventory of genes expressed in the brain, and insights into how their products determine brain function. However, many of the necessary reagents are either unavailable, or when available suffer from a lack of efficacy and specificity when used in mammalian brain. The availability of high-quality, reliable mAbs that have been optimized for use in human, non-human primate, and rodent brain (i.e. NeuroMabs) is of utmost importance to virtual all areas of neuroscience. The generation of a comprehensive library of NeuroMabs will be pursued by first taking advantage of the wealth of data emerging from the human, mouse and rat genome projects to generate recombinant and/or synthetic immunogens corresponding to fragments of neuronal proteins. These will be used in an intense immunization protocol that yields large numbers of IgG-secreting hybridomas from a relatively short immunization period. These large hybridoma pools will be screened for those mAbs that recognize the cognate antigen in heterologous cells, and then the entire positive pool subjected to comprehensive biochemical and immunohistochemical analyses of their efficacy and specificity in brain. The resultant brain optimized NeuroMabs will be made available at very low cost to the research community as tissue culture supernatants or as concentrated IgG preparations. The NeuroMab secreting hybridomas will also be made freely available. Investigators will use these NeuroMabs for determining the presence and relative abundance of the cognate antigens in developing, adult, aged, and diseased brain, their cellular and subcellular localization, functionally relevant post-translational modifications, and protein-protein interactions. Moreover, NeuroMabs may find additional i applications in direct functional analyses of proteins, in diagnostic procedures, and as therapeutics.