EPITOPES OF HUMAN ALPHA-FETOPROTEIN - CONSTRUCTION OF AN EPITOPE-MAP FROM A LARGE NUMBER OF MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES

A relative epitope-map of human AFP was constructed from a comparison of antigenic determinants of three collections of monoclonal antibodie s (mabs). Twenty-four mabs were compared using five techniques; counte rflow-isotachophoresis, competitive-RIA, competitive-ELISA, additive-E LISA test and Multiantigen assay. It was possible to construct an epit ope-map consisting of at least six independent epitopes of which three constituted a major epitopecluster. The number of epitopes found is i n accordance with the theoretically expected from analysis of RIA-data with polyclonal antibodies. The epitope-map could be an important too l for standardisation of mabs and for construction of immunochemical a ssays for human alpha-fetoprotein, and the epitope-map may also form t he starting point for construction of a physical epitope-map using fra gments of AFP and peptides.