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Routine scientific procedures using millions of animals are still being authorised when there is a tried and tested alternative, according to a group of scientists investigating the production of antibodies.
The scientists, writing in the Cell Press journal, Trends in Biotechnology , say the use of animals in consumer society is effectively 'hidden' and products assumed to be 'animal-friendly' are anything but. They say an animal friendly antibody production technique using bacteriophage viruses instead of live animals is being overlooked, despite the enormous potential for reduction in animal use.
The global antibody industry is worth 80 billion dollars and relies heavily on animals to produce the antibodies that are used to detect the vast range of molecules indicative of state of health, safety or the environment. Antibody-based tests are used in consumer and environmental safeguarding—from healthcare, over the counter, point of care and laboratory diagnostic testing to food safety, agriculture and household products.
[...] Dr Alison Gray, a visiting researcher at The University of Nottingham's School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, said: "The antibody-based tests that are commonly used in society appear to be far removed from animal experimentation since no animals were directly tested on. However, the target molecule to be detected is repeatedly injected into the animal, initiating an immune response. Months later, the animal is euthanased [sic] and antibodies to that molecule are extracted and incorporated into an in vitro, 'animal-free' test. So in reality, we are not replacing animals but substituting methods.
"The ultimate aim of scientists in this field should be to replace the use of animals in research and industry but due to a lack of awareness about this technology, this is not happening fast enough. The 20 year old advanced technology called 'phage display' which uses bacteriophage viruses to produce monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies is available and cost-effective and can replace a huge number of animals. In fact this technology has grown to a level of scientific sophistication that outweighs obsolete and outdated animal immunisation protocols."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ilPapa on Saturday July 23 2016, @03:38PM
Inertia.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 4, Informative) by rleigh on Saturday July 23 2016, @05:55PM
While it might account for some cases, and indeed many labs are already set up to make polyclonals and monoclonals, there may well still be a good number of reasons not to use phage display.
Firstly the practical. So phage display was predicted (in the article) in 1998 to replace animals for antibody production. I've worked in several labs in different life science departments since I started in 1999. I've talked with people routinely making polyclonal antibodies (mice, rabbits), ascites (mice), and monoclonals (standard cell culture in flasks and affinity purification). I've cultured some monoclonals for someone else in my lab, but that's the extent of it for me other than ordering them from catalogues. I have never once heard of anyone using phage display. Maybe that's inertia, but it may also be that it's not as universally useful as claimed.
Some of the thoughts in the article are wrong or at least overstated.
- There are hundreds of thousands of monoclonal antibodies which have already been made. The work is done. These are not going to be re-derived wholesale using phage display. They could certainly be sequenced to keep a record of the exact DNA sequence for the antibody, but there wouldn't be a business justification to re-make something that already works if you're an antibody company with a catalogue into the tens of thousands.
- There are too many antibodies for the same target. One protein may have multiple epitopes. Different antibodies are used in different applications where different epitopes are presented. For example, proteins in Western blots are denatured and do not have the same epitopes as those in the live tissue, or in frozen sections, or paraffin sections, or single cells on plates, or whole-mount, and they may also influenced by the fixation methods and sample preparation used. You might have to try several antibodies until you find one which works. Sometimes none of them work.
- This leads to the usefulness of polyclonal antibodies. Because they are the result of a natural immune response, they contain a whole spectrum of antibodies against different epitopes with different affinities. While it's not as specific as a single high-affinity monoclonal, you may get better staining because you get more than one antibody binding to each protein of interest. And you can always try making monoclonals from them, should it work.
- Polyclonal production doesn't necessarily require killing the animal. You can collect blood for many years with larger animals.
- Once you've got a hybridoma monoclonal, which sadly does involve using an animal, you can culture it indefinitely. You can freeze it down, post it to labs around the world and give or sell to companies for them to sell on your behalf. It's all standard cell culture not involving animals, and is very routine and simple to do.
Animals are very expensive to keep. Cell culture is much cheaper but still costly. Cheaper alternatives would be welcomed, and I don't think inertia fully accounts for people not switching to cheaper and more effective methods. Most labs don't produce or culture their own antibodies; most of the time it's much more cost effective to buy them from companies specialising at producing them at scale (catalogue size and volume). I'm sure those companies would be switching over if it helped the bottom line, despite their existing catalogues being mainly monoclonals. If nothing else, new additions would be from phage display even if the older items in the catalogue were not updated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @07:23PM
Thanks for that.
To somewhat restate what you already said:
It could also be that an animal may produce a different mix of antibodies specific to a different strain of a target organism. The right mix of antibodies could result in a better test. Since organisms are always mutating it might be beneficial to get a new mix from time to time. Different strains of the same target organism may require different mixes for a more optimal test. It may be difficult to manually have to create several different mixes for each strain and to keep them up to date with all the latest strains. Furthermore how do you determine what mix is optimal for a new strain in a cost effective manner (trial and error?). Using animals to automatically do it for you may be easier in some situations.