Chicken antibodies: a tool to avoid interference by human anti-mouse antibodies in ELISA after in vivo treatment with murine monoclonal antibodies.

Human anti-murine antibodies (HAMA) can be found in serum of many patients who have received murine monoclonal antibodies for diagnosis or therapy. These antibodies are known to give false positive results in sandwich-type assays (e.g. ELISA or RIA). This interference problem will increase in the future as more patients are treated with murine monoclonal antibodies in vivo. HAMA can also be found in sera from patients that has not been treated with monoclonal antibodies. In this work we have studied the interference of HAMA in sandwich ELISAs containing antibodies from different species. HAMA, present in the sample, may react both with the capture antibody and the detection antibody in these assays to give a false positive reaction. HAMA did not react with chicken IgG, and if one of (or both) the capture and detection antibody was of avian origin, the interference of HAMA in sandwich assays could be avoided.