Establishment of Novel Monoclonal Fabs Specific for Epstein-Barr Virus Encoded Latent Membrane Protein 1

Here we isolated the Fab clones 1-A11, 6-C6, 10-B2, and 15-H10 and confirmed their recognition of LMP1 expressed on the surface of EBV+ B95.8 cells. Recognition of LMP1 on the cell membrane by clone 15-H10 was verified through immunofluorescent assay, while other clones failed the recognition. One of the possible reasons could be the stringent washing in this assay that ruptured the low affinity Fab-LMP1 binding. EBV infection is related with multiple diseases, and conventional approaches used in laboratory diagnostic tests for EBV infection and pathogenesis have their limitations [(generate false positive results or lack the ability to localize the expression of EBV within target cells) ( Young and Rickinson 2004 )]. The LMP1-specific Fab clones reported here need further evaluation in both affinity and specificity in testing EBV+ patient samples, and hopefully it could have potential applications in EBV diagnostics and directly targeting EBV-related tumors in adoptive T cell therapy.