Inventors:
Charles C. Ditlow - Fremont CA
Francis W. Chen - San Francisco CA
Emanuel Calenoff - Chicago IL
Assignee:
Charter Ventures - Palo Alto CA
International Classification:
G01N 33574
G01N 3353
C07K 1618
Abstract:
An antigen comprising 5,7 cholestadien-3. beta. -ol (7-dehydrocholesterol) or a compound having a structure similar to 5,7 cholestadien-3. beta. -ol and a quaternary ammonium salt is provided. Also provided is a method of generating an antibody using the aforementioned antigen, as well as antibodies produced thereby and fragments of such antibodies. The invention also provides a rat myeloma cell line Z2D3 73/30 1D10 and a murine-human chimeric monoclonal antibody produced thereby. A CDR-grafted antibody comprising a CDR region amino acid sequence from hybridoma Z2D3 or hybridoma Z2D3/3E5 and framework and constant region amino acid sequences from a human immunoglobulin is further provided. Also provided are methods for imaging atherosclerotic plaque, ablating atherosclerotic plaque, detecting and quantitatively determining in a sample an antigen indicative of the presence of atherosclerotic plaque, reducing the amount of atherosclerotic plaque in a blood vessel, and treating atherosclerosis in a subject. The invention also provides peptides having amino acid sequences which are the same or substantially the same as those of the aforementioned murine-human chimeric monoclonal antibody, as well as isolated nucleic acid sequences encoding therefore.