Due to their abundance in epithelial cells and deposition in necrotic regio
ns intratumorally, cytokeratins (CKs) have been established as valuable tar
gets for both radioimmunolocalization and radioimmunotherapy. The target ep
itope for the monoclonal anti-CK8 antibody, TSI, used for both experimental
radioimmunolocalization and radioimmunotherapy, was determined by means of
synthesis of 96 overlapping peptides that covered the entire CK8 molecule.
A highly conserved peptide sequence, spanning amino acids (aa) 343-357 and
covering the discontinuous epitope in the helical 2B domain, was identifie
d. The epitope retains its helical structure, as shown with circular dichro
ism spectroscopy, although the length of the peptide (i.e., >20 aa) is cruc
ial for maintenance of immunoreactivity,
To determine which aa residues are crucial for binding to the monoclonal an
tibody, alanine scanning was performed on a 26-mer covering aa 340-365, wit
h the sequence QRGELAIKDANAKLSELEAALQRAKQ. The 26 modified peptides were ev
aluated using ELISA and BIAcore technology. The uniqueness of this epitope
has been established by data base sequence comparisons.