AFFINITY REAGENTS FOR THE IMMUNE SYSTEM OF GUINEA PIGS

Guinea pigs have been used as experimental animals for centuries. Due to their biological similarities to humans, guinea pigs were used in many fields of biomedical research, such as nutritional research, vaccine research and development, hormonal studies, auditory system studies, and infectious disease studies. The usefulness of guinea pig as a small animal model for biomedical research has been constrained by the lack of immunological reagents, particularly for immunological analysis. Affinity reagents for immune system of guinea pigs are of great need to facilitate the immunological analysis using this animal model. Qoolabs has developed a robust method of generating recombinant rabbit monoclonal antibodies from peripheral blood (QMab™ for quick monoclonal antibody from blood).In this project, we propose to generate rabbit monoclonal antibodies to selected immune targets of guinea pig. Antibodies and immunoassays for cytokines are essential tools for the research of immune responses.In phase I, antibodies to cytokines involved in the T cell response are developed and characterized. In Phase II, this method will be used for generation of antibodies to a large number of target antigens, including other immune targets of guinea pig and immune targets of other species.