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menooby OP t1_j2cynkc wrote

Reply to comment by CrateDane in Do human antibodies bind to animal cells? I see that in ANA tests they use rat cells. are they transgenic mice? or just regular mice. by menooby

Wait but they used to use animal cells? https://www.hopkinslupus.org/lupus-tests/lupus-blood-tests/ 'usually sections of rodent liver/kidney or human tissue culture cell lines' What I mean to say is, do human cells and rat cells share the same antigens. Thanks for replying btw

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iayork t1_j2dhheg wrote

I don’t know about ANA tests in particular, but nuclear proteins in general tend to be highly conserved (I.e. similar across a wide range of species). This makes sense because the basics of DNA replication and RNA production are virtually identical across hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Wikipedia’s article on conserved sequences notes that many of them are the “proteins required for transcription and translation, which are assumed to have been conserved from the last universal common ancestor of all life”.

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menooby OP t1_j2fuxup wrote

Really?? Interesting. Thank you

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CrateDane t1_j2d05wp wrote

That's describing immunofluorescence microscopy, a more labor-intensive way of doing it. I assume ELISA is more widely used nowadays. And they do mention the option of using human cell lines - that would be the better choice as you want to see if there are antibodies against human nuclear proteins/antigens. Animal cells will have homologous proteins/antigens which some of the antibodies would likely still recognize, but human ones would be better. In an ELISA you would just use purified human proteins/antigens.

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