Antigenic sites of lactate dehydrogenase-C4.

Use of antipeptide antibodies plus a panel of monoclonal antibodies to screen the testicular lactate dehydrogenases should provide highly sensitive discrimination of their evolutionary relatedness. When this is combined with sequence information and peptide synthesis, it will be possible to describe the precise limits of each epitope on the surface of LDH-C4. From the standpoint of contraceptive vaccine development, a synthetic antigen consisting of one or more epitopes can be prepared. This will eliminate the necessity of attempting to isolate antigens from natural products, and will provide a useful strategy for developing this approach to fertility control.