Heterophile antibodies are present in the blood of at least 10% of the general population. These anti-animal antibodies, especially human anti-mouse antibodies (HAMA), are one of the potential sources of error in immunodiagnostics assays as they can cause false positive or false negative results. A common way of overcoming the problems caused by HAMA is the use of blocking reagents. Furthermore, the use of Fab fragments suppresses the HAMA response. However, these options result in additional costs in terms of both reagents and labor.

A powerful tool with which to solve the issue with HAMA in immunodiagnostics is the use of chimeric or fully humanized antibodies.

At HyTest, we have converted two of our anti-cTnI antibodies to chimeric forms. The chimeric cTnI antibodies Rec19C7 and Rec16A11 consist of the original mouse derived variable regions that are responsible for antigen specificity and human derived constant regions. Tests performed with clinical samples containing high amounts of HAMA showed that, in contrast to conventional anti-cTnI antibodies, the chimeric antibodies were not influenced by HAMA.

Chimeric cTnI antibody TechNotes
Chimeric cTnI antibody Data Sheet