MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES IN THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE OF PLANT-VIRUSES

Monoclonal antibodies have been used as probes to study the architectu re of several plant viruses over the past decade. These studies comple ment the information obtained through X-ray crystallography and help i n delineating epitopes on the surface of the virus. The monoclonal ant ibodies that recognize distinct epitopes also aid in unravelling the m echanisms of assembly/disassembly of virus particles. Group-specific a nd strain-specific monoclonal antibodies are widely used in the classi fication of viruses. The significant developments made in this emergin g area are reviewed here with specific examples.