Overcoming the poor immunogenicity of a protein by DNA immunization as a fusion construct

The production of antibodies against poorly immunogenic proteins is problem atic. Often there is a failure to generate such antibodies. Furthermore, an tibodies against other specificities are frequently induced. We describe a simple approach, analogous to conjugation to a protein carrier, whereby imm unization with naked DNA was used to raise antibody to a highly homologous and poorly immunogenic allotypic protein. Deoxyribonucleic acid encoding th e protein of interest was fused to DNA encoding the Fc region of a foreign Ig, resulting in increased immunogenicity. The potential applications of th is approach include the production of antisera and mAb to allotypic variant s, mutant proteins, and proteins that are highly conserved between species.