Preliminary study of the metal binding site of an anti-DTPA-indium antibody by equilibrium binding immunoassays and immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography.

Creating metal coordination sites by modifying an existing enzyme or by eliciting antibodies against metal chelate haptens is of great interest in biotechnology to create enzyme catalysts with novel specificities. Here, we investigate the metal binding potential of a monoclonal antibody raised against a DTPA-In(III) hapten (mAb 734). We study its relative binding efficiency to metals of biological relevance by equilibrium binding immunoassays and immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography, two approaches which can give complementary information regarding composition and/or structure of the metal binding site(s). Fe(III), Fe(II), Cu(II), Mg(II), Ca(II), and Zn(II) binding was compared to In(III). All of them were shown to displace indium, but their affinity for mAb 734 decreased by 100-fold compared to indium. Competitive metal binding immunoassays between Zn(II) and In(III) revealed an unusual behavior by Zn(II) which remains to be explained. Moreover, IMAC allowed us to predict the metal binding amino acids involved in the antibody paratope. The antibody metal binding site was shown to contain at least two histidine residues in a cluster, and the presence of aspartic and glutamic acid as well as cysteine residues could not be excluded. Thus, simple competition studies allows us to obtain some partial information on the metal binding structural features of this anti-metal chelate antibody and to guide our screening of its catalytic potential.