Anti-keratin monoclonal antibodies for identifying animal hair fibers

Type II keratins from cashmere are used as antigens to produce species-specific monoclonal antibodies for fiber identification purposes. Balb/c mice are immunized with the keratins purified by two-dimensional preparative gel electrophoresis. Hybridoma clones showing high immunological responses are subcloned by limiting dilution and then expanded to obtain antibodies in large amounts. When the antibodies are screened by two-dimensional immunoblotting for immunoreactivity with keratins isolated from cashmere and wool, several differences are detected, both quantitative and qualitative. Although further work is needed to develop routine analytical protocols, the preliminary results reported in this paper appear to be extremely promising, and our approach could contribute to solving the problem of the objective identification of cashmere and other speciality animal fibers.