Production of monoclonal antibodies to porcine interleukin-18 and their use for immunoaffinity purfication of recombinant porcine interleukin-18

We have recently reported the cloning and expression of porcine interleukin-18 (IL-18). In this study, we describe the production of anti-porcine IL-18 monoclonal antibodies (mAb) and their use in the purification of a large amount of recombinant porcine IL-18 by immunoaffinity column chromatography. Five monoclonal antibodies (2-2-B, 2-5-B, 2-13-C, 3-1-C and 5-3-B) were established and characterized. Three (2-2-B, 3-1-C and 5-3-B) of them were of IgG1 subclass, and the other two were IgMs. Epitope analysis of the three IgG1 mAbs showed that they recognized the same epitope. All five mAbs demonstrated reactivity with baculovirus generated porcine IL-18 by immunoblot analysis. Biologically active porcine IL-18 was obtained by immunoaffinity chromatography using anti-porcine IL-18 mAb at more than 85% purity from culture supernatants of Trichoplusia ni (Tn5) derived cells infected with recombinant baculovirus containing the coding sequence of pol cine mature IL-18. These results suggest that the anti-porcine IL-18 mAbs established in this study are useful for one-step purification of porcine mature IL-18 as well as the detection of porcine IL-18 by immunoblotting. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.