Monoclonal antibodies suitable for incorporation into a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detection of specific antibodies to Leptospira interrogans serovar pomona

Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) were produced by fusing Sp2/0-Ag14 myeloma cells with spleen cells from BALB/c and ND4 mice that were immunized with killed Leptospira interrogans serovar pomona whole cells. Thirty hybridomas which produced antibodies (of the IgG1, IgG2a, IgG2b, or IgG3 isotype) that bound to epitopes on the serovar pomona whole cell antigen were identified by an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Twenty-eight of these 30 mAbs cross-reacted in the indirect ELISA with at least one whole cell antigen prepared from 12 other pathogenic Leptospira serovars, and/or with whole cell antigen from the non-pathogenic Leptospira biflexa serovar patoc. The two serovar pomona-specific mAbs, which were designated M897 and M898, were obtained from the ND4 mouse and were both of the IgG1 isotype. In competitive ELISAs, M897 and M898 were inhibited from binding to the pomona antigen by bovine sera with anti-serovar pomona microscopic agglutination test (MAT) titres ranging from 100 to 6400. No significant inhibition was observed with pomona MAT-negative sera or with sera from animals experimentally infected with serovars canicola, copenhageni, grippotyphosa, hardjo type hardjobovis or sejroe. The epitopes recognized by M897 and M898 were both highly susceptible to sodium meta-periodate oxidation, indicating a carbohydrate composition. Neither of these mAbs reacted in immunoblots with the separated components of the serovar pomona whole cell antigen.