Specificity Analysis of Carbohydrate Binding Antibodies

在疾病的发生和发展过程中，癌细胞的碳水化合物表达发生了巨大的变化。检测这些变化对于了解它们的基本生物学以及监测诊断目的的变化是必不可少的。碳水化合物的表达几乎完全由抗碳水化合物抗体和凝集素监测。此外，抗碳水化合物抗体和凝集素可用于靶向肿瘤。为了使这些蛋白提供碳水化合物肿瘤抗原表达的准确信息或可靠地靶向肿瘤，它们必须特异性地结合特定的感兴趣的碳水化合物。不幸的是，用传统工具分析特异性很困难，而且大多数抗体和凝集素还没有完全表征。尽管缺乏相关信息，但许多抗体和凝集素被认为是特异性的，有关碳水化合物表达的结论是基于这种看法得出的。我们正在使用碳水化合物微阵列来评估许多常用的抗碳水化合物抗体和凝集素的特异性。到目前为止，我们已经分析了26种抗体，发现40%的抗体存在特异性问题。缺乏特异性会导致不准确的基础科学信息，不准确的诊断信息和低效的肿瘤靶向药物。

Cancer cells undergo dramatic changes in carbohydrate expression during the onset and progression of disease. Detection of these changes is essential for understanding their basic biology as well as for monitoring changes for diagnostic purposes. Carbohydrate expression is monitored almost exclusively with anti-carbohydrate antibodies and lectins. In addition, anti-carbohydrate antibodies and lectins can be used to target tumors. For these proteins to provide accurate information on the expression of carbohydrate tumor antigens or to reliably target tumors, they must bind specifically to a particular carbohydrate of interest. Unfortunately, analysis of specificity has been difficult with conventional tools and most antibodies and lectins have not been fully characterized. In spite of the lack of information, many of the antibodies and lectins are thought to be specific and conclusions regarding carbohydrate expression are made based on this perception. We are using a carbohydrate microarray to evaluate the specificity of many commonly used anti-carbohydrate antibodies and lectins. To date, we have analyzed 26 antibodies and found 40% have specificity problems. The lack of specificity can lead to inaccurate basic science information, inaccurate diagnostic information, and inefficient tumor targeting agents.