Development of Monoclonal Antibody Anti-African Bitis arietans Snake Toxin Phospholipase A2

This work is part of long-term research to improve the quality of antivenom antibodies based on cumulative information gathered from established knowledge of the immune response cellular and molecular mechanisms as well as from molecular animal venom toxins. There are two main objectives: first, the introduction of punctual modifications to antitoxin antibody (Ab) production for immediate use; second, the use of Ab hyper variable regions to model scFvs that have high toxin neutralizing potency. The first objective has been successfully accomplished in recent years. Polyclonal Abs (pAbs) that has high antigen (Ag) potency recognition has been developed. For the second objective, the use of purified-characterized toxins as antigens to produce monoclonal Abs (mAbs) is ongoing. This manuscript contains data indicating that purified and enzymatically characterized PLA2 from Bitis arietans venom induces IgA mAbs that recognize epitopes and neutralize toxic domains with desirable potency. The obtained mAb will serve as a hypervariable sequence source for single chain fragments variable (scFvs). The present study highlights the use of purified venom toxins as substitutes for complete venoms in immunization procedures.