Generation and Application of Mouse Monoclonal Antibody Against Human Cytomegalovirus UL23

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a paradigm for pathogen-mediated immune evasion. The immune response to HCMV has been intensively studied for many years and still remains the focus of attention for numerous research groups. UL23 is an early gene of HCMV, belonging to the US22 gene family, encoding protein UL23. However, no monoclonal antibodies against to HCMV UL23 protein have been reported to prepare for the research. In this study, we prepared a highly specific monoclonal antibody against UL23 protein by alternately immunizing BALB/C mice with both UL23 recombinant protein and HCMV Towne. Recombinant protein UL23 was used as a detection antigen to screen 305 strains of hybridoma cells. One of them was identified to secrete IgG1 mAb named as 26C5. Western blotting results showed that not only the overexpressed UL23 protein in 293T cells but also the viral UL23 protein in HCMV-infected human foreskin fibroblast cells specifically were recognized by 26C5 mAb. Notably, we found that UL23 protein were enriched by 26C5 mAb in coimmunoprecipitation experiment with high potency and the native form of UL23 protein localizing primarily in the cytoplasm were recognized by 26C5 mAb in immunofluorescence assay with high specificity. The monoclonal antibody obtained in this study lays the foundation for further study of HCMV UL23 protein.