ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGIES TO GENERATE MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES

Several new technologies to generate and modify established hybridomas that produce monoclonal antibodies have recently been presented and f urther development should make them more suitable for diagnostic and t herapeutic techniques. Different proteolytic procedures have been used for the fragmentation of intact antibodies to Fab(2)' and Fab fragmen ts and recombinant DNA techniques have made it possible to obtain chim eric, humanized, Fv fragments and single-chain Fvs. A review of the ne w approaches is presented and the future implications are discussed.