Abstract

A. Kavi Praba, S. Vibitha, A. Anitha, A. Archana and N. Prabhu*

ABSTRACT

Monoclonal antibodies (MABs) are attractive immunological tools with applications in the fields of immunology, biotechnology, biochemistry and applied biology. Production of MABs using hybridoma technology was discovered in 1975 by George Kohler of West Germany and Cesar Milstein of Argentina. Recently MABs have been widely applied in the fields of clinical medicine. Currently MABs account for one-third of all the new therapy treatments for breast cancer, leukemia, arthritis, transplant rejection and asthma with many more late-stage clinical trials been conducted. Mab therapies for relapsing and remitting multiple sclerosis target the immune cells are other molecules involved in pathogenic pathway with many extraordinary specificity. Some antibodies had been demonstrated significant reduction in clinical and magnetic resonance imaging disease activity and stability in clinical studies. These monoclonal antibodies have distinct structural characteristics and unique targets conferring different mechanism of action in multiple sclerosis. Because of structural difference monoclonal antibodies for multiple sclerosis do not constitute a single treatment class, each must be considered individually when selecting appropriate therapy. Multiple sclerosis is a potentially disabling chronic autoimmune neurological disease that mainly affects young adults. So far there is no drug available that can completely halt all the neuro degenerative changes associated with the disease. In this review, we outline the production, application, antibody engineering, mechanism of action, indication, side effects, safety and pharmaceutical application of various monoclonal antibodies used in the treatment for multiple sclerosis as a molecule for understanding and monitoring the biology of disease and its role in research, clinical, diagnostic and pharmaceutical applications.