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. 1990 Sep;58(9):3036–3041. doi: 10.1128/iai.58.9.3036-3041.1990

Monoclonal antibodies against the 70-kilodalton iron-regulated protein of Neisseria meningitidis are bactericidal and strain specific.

A Pettersson 1, B Kuipers 1, M Pelzer 1, E Verhagen 1, R H Tiesjema 1, J Tommassen 1, J T Poolman 1
PMCID: PMC313607  PMID: 1696939

Abstract

When grown under iron limitation, Neisseria meningitidis expresses a number of outer membrane proteins (OMPs), one of which is a 70-kilodalton (kDa) major OMP. After immunization of mice with outer membrane preparations of iron-depleted cells of strain H44/76 (B:15:P1.7,16), hybridoma cell lines producing monoclonal antibodies against the 70-kDa OMP were obtained. Some of these monoclonal antibodies demonstrated strong bactericidal activity against the homologous strain H44/76 in the presence of human complement, suggesting potential application of the 70-kDa OMP as a vaccine component. However, none of the 10 selected monoclonal antibodies was able to recognize the corresponding protein from five heterologous strains of various serosubtyping characteristics. A polyclonal anti-70-kDa OMP serum also did not react with the other strains. This result shows that immunodominant surface-exposed epitopes of the meningococcal 70-kDa iron-limitation-inducible OMP are strain specific.

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Selected References

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