Kuo C Y, Sun P, Lee C Y
Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
J Reprod Immunol. 1988 Aug;13(3):193-209. doi: 10.1016/0165-0378(88)90001-0.
The potential of using anti-idiotype antibodies as immunocontraceptive vaccines is evaluated in this study. Two sperm monoclonal antibodies, HS 63 and MS 204, which have significant inhibitory effect on the in vitro and in vivo fertilization of mouse were selected to elicit heterologous anti-idiotype antibodies. Rabbit antisera against HS 63 or MS 204 were collected after the third immunization. After the removal of anti-Fc fragments with an irrelevant mouse IgG immunoadsorbent column, anti-idiotype antibodies (anti-Id HS 63 or anti-Id MS 204) were purified from the antisera with affinity chromatography. HS 63 or MS 204 was used as respective ligand. The purified anti-idiotype antibodies conjugated with hemocyanin were used to immunize female CD-1 mice as the experimental group. Another group of female CD-1 mice were immunized with adjuvant only as the control group. Each group had three mice. The immune responses varied significantly among individual mice. The antisera could stain the acrosomal region of sperm in the indirect immunofluorescent assay in a way which is similar to the original monoclonal antibodies (HS 63 and MS 204). The inhibitory effect of antisera on the sperm fertilization of mouse oocytes in vitro was significant in both cases. In the case of antisera against anti-Id HS 63, the control group showed 81.8% and 49.3% of fertilization rates, whereas the corresponding rates of the experimental group were only 35.7% and 20.5%, respectively. Similarly, for antisera against anti-Id MS 204, the experimental group also revealed lower fertilization rates as compared with those of the controls (50.0% vs. 95.8% and 36.8% and 81.3%). The results of this study suggest that anti-idiotype antibodies against HS 63 and MS 204 contain the internal image of the sperm antigen and they could elicit an immune response with a significant antifertility effect. Therefore, they might not only be contributory to further study and understanding of the original antigens in structure and function but also be used as an alternative in the development of immunocontraceptive vaccines.
