MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES DETECTING COMPONENTS OF THE BOVINE IMMUNE-SYSTEM IN FORMALDEHYDE-FIXED PARAFFIN-EMBEDDED TISSUE SPECIMENS

Although the use of monoclonal antibodies in the diagnosis of fixed hu man material is a daily routine, the lack of suitable reagents recogni zing epitopes resistant to formaldehyde fixation is an obvious limit t o extending this approach to veterinary research and practice. To find reagents that retain their binding capacity to the recognized epitope s in formaldehyde-fixed samples, bovine lymphoid tissue sections were immunostained using various antigen retrieval procedures with monoclon al antibodies raised against ruminant leukocyte cell surface molecules . As a result, a set of antibodies could be established that allowed t he identification of different immune cell types including all or a di stinct subpopulation of B and T lymphocytes, monocytes, macrophages, g ranulocytes, red blood cells, and vascular endothelial cells.