Alternative technologies to generate monoclonal antibodies.

Several new technologies to generate and modify established hybridomas that produce monoclonal antibodies have recently been presented and further development should make them more suitable for diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. Different proteolytic procedures have been used for the fragmentation of intact antibodies to Fab2' and Fab fragments and recombinant DNA techniques have made it possible to obtain chimeric, humanized, Fv fragments and single-chain Fvs. A review of the new approaches is presented and the future implications are discussed.