An anti-HIV-1 gag protein rat monoclonal antibody library

A set of 18 rat monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) directed against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) gag proteins was derived from 4 independent fusion protocols. The epitopes recognized were delineated using a random fragment expression library representing the whole HIV-1IIIB genome. This panel of rat MAbs was used to analyze the antigenicities of the HIV-1 CAp24 major core protein and the HIV-1 NCp7 nucleocapsid protein. As a result, a limited set of antigenic domains was defined, 3 on CAp24 between amino acids (aa) 195 and 268, 323 and 329 and 352, and one on NCp7 (aa 382–392). Only 4 mouse anti-CAp24 MAbs appeared to recognize the COOH-terminal domain (aa 329–352) defined by the majority of our MAbs. The rat anti-CAp24 (Q1B10) and the rat anti-NCp7 (I5B11) MAbs described here, defined two newly described epitopes, aa 323–329 and aa 382–392.