potato leafroll virus

[Robert Burns]

Hi all,
I wonder if any of you can help out on this one.

We have been developing Mabs for the detection of PLRV in 
potato leaves. After two fusions we have 5 Mab secreting lines.

All are IgM but that is not a disaster. We are now looking at a
range of infected and non infected plant material and are getting
some really weird results.

1. Some plants testing positive using polyclonal ELISA are -ve
using our Mabs.

2. Some healthy material gives a strong positive response to our
mabs. i.e. false positives.


3. The Mabs do not cross react with any other virus we have tested
in tobacco material. However in potato some viruse give a positive
result with one cultivar but not in another.

It is almost as though our Mabs are reacting some leafroll virus
isolates and also something else found in some potato cultivars.

BTW all five cell lines produce exactly the same pattern of 
results.  REALLY WEIRD!! Any ideas anybody



Thanks



Robert Burns

burns at sasa.gov.uk