Direct detection of idiotypic determinants on blotted monoclonal antibodies.

The protein-blotting technique has been tested as a mean to study the expression of idiotypic determinants. A monoclonal BALB/c antipoly (Glu60-Ala30-Tyr10) GAT antibody (G5) was caused to migrate on SDS gel and transferred to a nitrocellulose filter. To facilitate the renaturation of the idiotypic determinants, the blotted proteins were incubated in NP40 buffer, immediately after the transfer. The ability of two anti-idiotypic sera to detect two defined idiotypic specificities of the blotted G5 molecules was investigated. When G5 was electrophoresed on SDS gel under non-reducing conditions, a specific detection of two idiotypic specificities of the G5-blotted molecules was obtained. On the other hand, when G5 was migrated under reducing conditions, none of the two antiidiotypic sera gave a staining of the heavy and the light chains. This result indicates that molecules expressing conformational idiotypic determinants can be detected by protein-blotting technique after migration on SDS gel. Moreover, this suggests the possible interest of this technique to analyse non-antibody molecules bearing idiotypic determinants.