General Applications of Antibodies
We understand that antibodies are important players in our bodies and help us fight off infections, but why are antibodies a hot topic and central focus for many researchers and healthcare professionals?
This is because antibodies possess useful and advantageous characteristics making them excellent tools for biomedical research, diagnostics, and drug therapies.
Consider, antibodies can be:
A) Highly specific and selective
Just as every car has its own specific key, each antibody binds to a unique protein structure. An antibody’s selective nature gives rise to useful applications due to its precision when binding to a protein of interest.
In the laboratory, if a researcher is looking to detect the presence of a specific protein in a tissue or sample, a particular antibody can be selected to bind to and detect the protein of interest.
In medicine, antibodies can precisely target and bind the protein of interest (e.g. a specific protein on cancer cells) resulting in specific outcomes (e.g. halting cell growth).
B) Designed and modified in the laboratory
With advanced scientific technologies, the structure of an antibody can be designed and modified to target desired proteins. A slight modification in the antibody sequence and structure can result in the antibody binding a different protein target. Thus, the ability to modify an antibody’s structure provides researchers the flexibility to design and manipulate an antibody to target their protein of interest.
Applications:
1) Biomedical Research
From a high-level overview, biomedical research focuses on the study of the biological processes in diseases. By understanding a disease’s pathology, researchers can explore solutions to target and treat the disease.
Some common patterns that are investigated include:
- examining how a disease changes our bodies’ cellular function and signaling
(e.g., gene mutations)
- examining what tissues and organs are impacted by the disease of interest
(e.g., stomach, heart)
However, how can researchers precisely investigate these patterns when a human body is made up of trillions of independent cells with a variety of functions? You can imagine it is like finding a needle in haystack if there were not an efficient process to pinpoint and narrow our search.
This is where antibodies play an important role. The concept of antibodies is incorporated into research techniques that enable us to identify and characterize our desired targets.
Some well-known techniques include:
a) Western Blotting – enables researchers to detect the presence of specific proteins from a test sample
b) ELISAs (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays) – enables the detection and quantification of specific target proteins in a test sample
2) Diagnostics
Antibody tests (also known as serology tests) are detection tools that help researchers determine prior and existing infections. They can also be used to detect the presence of allergens, hormones, and other biological markers.
One example is the detection of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. As we know, antibodies are created as an immune response to infections. An antibody test can be created to detect antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 antigens in the blood. Therefore, these antibody tests are currently being used worldwide to detect prior and/or existing infections with SARS-CoV-2 and to monitor the levels of virus-specific antibodies after COVID-19 vaccinations.
Pregnancy tests are another well-known antibody-based test. A common indicator used to test for pregnancy is the presence of the human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) protein in urine. By developing an antibody to hCG (also known as an “anti-hCG” antibody), the anti-hCG antibody will bind to hCG (if present) and produce a visible color, indicating a positive result.
3) Drug therapy
Antibodies are one of the most important classes of therapeutic proteins and are used to treat a wide number of diseases (e.g., oncology, inflammation and autoimmune diseases). As such, they continue to dominate the pharmaceutical market.
For example, antibodies play a pivotal role in cancer treatments because researchers can design antibodies that bind to antigens that are more frequently expressed on a cancer cell surface compared to healthy cells. Thus, targeted antibody therapy can maximize the therapeutic effect, while minimizing unwanted side effects, by concentrating the drug action to the desired target.
Moreover, antibody therapy can function in diverse ways. Some methods include (but are not limited to):
- blocking and preventing a disease pathway
- marking specific cells for the immune system to destroy
- providing passive immunity by directly administering ready-made antibodies to immune deficient patients (e.g., hypogammaglobulinemia)
Overall, this is a high-level overview of how we can harness antibodies for use. By understanding the advantageous characteristics of antibodies, we can leverage them for research, diagnostics, and therapeutic purposes. By the end of this article, we hope this provides you a solid understanding as to what makes antibody therapies one of the top selling drugs and why they are frequently prescribed in many chronic diseases (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis). As we can see, antibody therapies are here to stay and will continue to grow because of their promising and prominent roles in expanding and improving treatment options for patients worldwide.
References:
Jones, R. E., & Lopez, K. H. (2013). Pregnancy. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123821843000106
Saljoughian, M. (2019). Monoclonal Antibody Applications in Bio-Oncology. Retrieved from https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/monoclonal-antibody-applications-in-biooncology
Serology Testing for COVID-19 at CDC. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/serology-testing.html
Oliver, J. (2021). Antibody Applications. Retrieved from https://www.labome.com/method/Antibody-Applications.html
Waliza Ansar, S. G. (2013). Monoclonal Antibodies: A Tool in Clinical Research. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.4137/IJCM.S11968