Monoclonal antibody therapy

Abstract

Monoclonal antibody therapy (MAT) makes use of all the major features of the immune response. It involves vaccination/ immunization, albeit in experimental animals, to induce the desired specific immune response. It exploits the high specificity, selectivity, and affinity of the antibody complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) toward the target antigen to be recognized, highlighted, inactivated, or eliminated, using the characteristics of the Fc portion of an immunoglobulin to facilitate the means for such inactivation or elimination and for selection of appropriate effector mechanisms. In fact, some of these mAbs can be regarded as major breakthroughs in the treatment of such disorders as transplant rejection, coronary artery disease, rheumatoid arthritis, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and breast cancer. However, it is questionable if the precise specificity of the mAb therapeutic strategy will ever be surpassed, and the versatility of mAb engincering provides exciting new avenues for mAbbased therapeutic strategies.