Development of recombinant human IgA for anticardiolipin antibodies assay standardization

Controls and calibrators in autoimmune assays are typically developed from patient sera. However, the use of sera is accompanied by a number of disadvantages, such as lack of monospecificity, lack of assay comparability, and supply limitations. Ideally, the control reagent would be an antigen-specific human monoclonal antibody preparation that is defined and pure, easy to produce without any supply limitations, and of defined isotype (IgG, IgM, or IgA). The generation of antigen-specific human monoclonal antibodies has been complicated, but recent advances in development of fully human antibodies by means of in vitro antibody gene library selection has opened a way for the isolation of human antibodies to virtually any antigen, including self-antigens. Such antibodies can be converted to any isotype by gene cloning. Here we developed a set of human monoclonal IgA antibodies specific for the cardiolipin-beta2-glycoprotein 1 complex, using the HuCAL technology. We evaluated the IgA variants of those antibodies for their use as standards in IgA anticardiolipin antibody assays and compared these reagents with serum controls. Such recombinant antibodies may ultimately replace patient sera as assay control and calibration reagents.