Antibodies naturally occurring compounds

Detection and Quantification of Naturally Occurring Compounds. Antibodies can be prepared for naturally occurring compounds as well as for pesticides and drugs. This opens the way for developing rapid immunoassays for plant and microbial products such as mycotoxins, plant hormones, and high value plant components such as flavor and fragrance compounds and pharmaceutical precursors. 

Shoyama, Y., Tanaka, H., and Fukuda, N. (1999). Monoclonal antibodies against naturally occurring bioactive compounds. Cytotechnology 31, 9-27. 

It is generally accepted that a relationship exists between the structural complexity of a compound, i.e., the variety of its components, and its ability to induce an immune response. For example, homopolymers of amino acids by themselves are very poor antigens, however, when used in a complex (e.g., with phosphorylated serum albumin), they induce normal levels of antibodies. The same effect can be accomplished by the introduction of a second or third different amino acid. Analogous situations exist in some naturally occurring macromolecules. Thus, the low level of antibodies induced by gelatin could be greatly elevated by the introduction of tyrosyl residues. - At the present time, we cannot explain... 

The immunoassay system using monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) is indispensable to biological investigations. However, because this was rare for naturally occurring bioactive compounds having small molecular weights, we have prepared the MAbs and established assay systems using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for forskolin, marijuana compound,opium alkaloids,... 

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