Production and Characterization of a Monoclonal Antibody Directed Against HTLV-1 pl9: Use in a Specific Capture Enzyme Immunoassay

Abstract

An enzyme immunoassay (EIA) was developed for detection of Human T-cell Leukemia Virus antigen in culture supernatants and cell lysates. The assay used a mouse monoclonal antibody against HTLV-I pl9 major core protein as capture antibody. It has a sensitivity of lμ.g/ml of HTLV-I protein, 250pg/ml of purified recombinant pl9 and detected pl9 in an 10^-2 diluted supernatant of MT2 infected cell and in a 100 MT2 cells lysate (10⁶ cells taken at day 7 of culture). The assay enable us to discriminate between HTLV-I and HTLV-II antigens and is reproductively negative for supernatants and cell lysates of uninfected cells and of HIV-1 infected cells. The assay was found to be more specific and 10 times more sensitive than the reverse transcriptase (RT) assay, and the EIA test became positive three days earlier than RT assay for the HTLV-I cell lines supernatants.