Antigenicity of elastin: characterization of major antigenic determinants on purified insoluble elastin.

This investigation reports a systematic comparison of antibody responses to well-defined fragments of mature, insoluble elastin in order to identify antigenic regions of the molecule. Antiserum to insoluble elastin was used to screen by radioimmunoassay the serologic activity of elastin peptides purified from a thermolysin digestion of insoluble elastin. Fractions with positive antigenicity were characterized by amino acid analysis and protein sequence analysis. Our results indicate that antigenic determinants on elastin can be classified functionally into two categories: major determinants related to the cross-linking domain which show cross-reactivity between species and limited, species-specific determinants in non-cross-linked regions of the molecule.