A novel monoclonal antibody screening method using the Luminex-100 microsphere system.

We describe the development of a robust and sensitive assay system (detection limit <500 pg/ml biotin-IL-6, K(d)=75 ng/ml), using Luminex-100 microspheres, that could effectively screen for neutralizing antibody whenever a soluble form of the receptor for a target molecule is available. As an example, we coupled a recombinant human interleukin-6 soluble receptor to a Luminex carboxylated microsphere and used a biotin-labeled recombinant human interleukin-6 as a probe to assess binding competition. Three anti-human IL-6 monoclonal antibodies that bind distinct IL-6 epitopes were used as test articles to evince the stringency of the screen. Our assay was able to detect antibody concentration as low as 10 ng/ml without interference from hybridoma growth medium or cell supernatant. The time-saving benefits of this assay format make it ideal for high-throughput screening (HTS) applications for neutralizing monoclonal antibodies.