MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES IN CLINICAL MEDICINE – A REVIEW

Monoclonal antibodies are produced by the cell fusion method, whereby immune murine spleen cells are fused with a murine myeloma to produce large quantities of specific homogenous antibodies. These have obvious advantages over conventional antisera particularly for in vitro diagnostic procedures. The use of monoclonal antibodies to human T cells, leukaemias and solid tumours are reviewed. In these areas, monoclonal antibodies are now being used for the diagnosis of disease activity, for the monitoring of graft rejection, and for the in vivo treatment of leukaemia and graft rejection in man. Murine monoclonal antibodies–examples of genetic engineering–represent a new and early phase of the use of molecular biological techniques for the production of reagents of use in clinical medicine.