Anti-Serum to Virus?

[tonys]

In article <3l2808$n9d at cisunix1.dfci.harvard.edu>
york at mbcrr.dfci.harvard.edu (Ian A. York) writes:

>     Mouse monoclonals are used in some human therapeutic work - at 
> least exerimentally - and I believe that traditional anti-tetanus 
> antiserum was raised in horses - perhaps the same is true for rabies as 
> well, though I'm not sure about that.  To emphasize what is probably 
> obvious, you don't want to get two exposures to this sort of thing - you 
> have a reasonable chance of undergoing anaphylactic shock on the second 
> massive exposure to the foreign antiserum.  
>     There are some differences in the secondary effects of the 
> foreign antibodies, which others can probably handle better than I - I 
> think that mouse antibodies don't do much for the human complement 
> system, for example.  

I recall that some group has recently "constructed" a mouse that
carries human Ig germline, the idea being that when these mice make
antibodies to an antigen, they make HUMAN antibodies.  Thus, this would
significantly lessen the prospects of anti-isotype response.

TS
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Tony Schountz
Division of Biology                    tonys at ksu.ksu.edu
Kansas State University
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