B.r.a.h.m.s Gmbh

Sabine Costagliola

Andreas Bergmann

Gilbert Vassart

Nils G Morgenthaler

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) having thyroid stimulating activity (TSAb), especially full or considerably agonistic activity, or thyroid blocking activity (TBAb), which are obtainable by genetic immunization of mice, or fragments (F(ab'), Fab or Fv) or humanized forms of such monoclonal antibodies or single chain forms (SCA; scFv) of such fragments, which antibodies, or their fragments, compete with bovine TSH for epitopes of the human TSHr, compete with autoantibodies from sera from Graves' patients as well as with autoantibodies from sera from patients harboring blocking autoantibodies for epitopes of the human TSHr, bind to conformational epitopes of the human TSHr located in the first 281 amino acids of the human TSHr, and usually also bind to TSFR receptors (TSHr) from different animals. Various uses of such antibodies, or of peptides corresponding to variable regions of such antibodies, are also described and claimed.

Monoclonal thyroid stimulating or blocking antibodies, peptide sequences corresponding to their variable regions, and their uses in diagnostic, preventive and therapeutic medicine

The present invention relates to the use of affinity-purified polyclonal human autoantibodies against the TSH receptor (TSHR-Auto-Ab), obtained from the serum of Graves' disease patients and which have been purified to obtain biochemical homogeneity and comprise a specific activity of at least 1 IU/mg protein (human immunoglobulin). Also disclosed is the use of animal antibodies, which compete with the former for the binding sites of a functional human TSH receptor, as a specific binding reagent in an immunological determination method for the clinical identification of autoantibodies against the TSH receptor (TSHR-Auto-Ab) in a sample of a biological fluid of a patient to be examined for Graves' disease.

Growing community of inventors

Brussels, Belgium

Sabine Costagliola