Week Six

The ELISA has been coming out pretty well for the last two weeks. Here's a bit of background information about the uses of this assay in this particular experiment.

As I mentioned before, alpha-Gal (abbrev. Gal) is a sugar found on natural antibody producing B cells, binding onto the BSA molecule. Gal is found in mice and pigs, but not in humans, which makes the field of xenotransplantion (transplanting organs between different species) very difficult, as the presence of Gal on a transplanted organ can trigger an immune response because humans have anti-Gal antibodies. This is one of the many barriers to xenotransplantation. However, if the barriers can be overcome, xenotransplantation could open up possibilities of almost endless organ transplant options, especially from pigs to humans. This new source of organs could curb the waiting list for tranplants dramatically, and save millions of lives of people who are dying just waiting for an transplant option to open. To study this, we use Gal KO mice (that are abnormal in that they don't have any Gal) and then give them a bone marrow transplant from a normal Gal positive mouse. The ELISAs that I have been doing have been testing for anti-Gal antibodies - that is, an immune response to Gal. If the mice are tolerant, there is no immune response - therefore, there are no anti-Gal antibodies seen in the assay. These tolerant mice are chimeras.