Abstract

Relatively little is known about immune functions of marine mammals in general, especially of cetaceans. As part of our current efforts to develop assays and reagents to study the immune system of marine mammals, and in view of the effort currently made to develop monoclonal antibodies to cell surface proteins of lymphocyte subsets in different species, the present study reports on the characterization of 6 monoclonal antibodies against cetacean lymphocytes homologues to CD2 (2 different antibodies), CD11/CD18, CD19, CD21 and CD45R. The specificity of those antibodies has been characterized on the basis of immunoprecipitation of the antigen they recognize, immunoperoxidase staining on cetacean lymph node sections, as well as one and two color flow cytometric analysis of cetacean PBMC and single cell suspension of thymus, lymph node and spleen. This is the first report of monoclonal antibodies to cell surface proteins of lymphocytes in cetaceans, and these antibodies are foreseen as possible valuable diagnostic tools to assess immune functions of captive and wild cetaceans as part of the evaluation of their health status.