bivalent antibody


Also found in: Encyclopedia.

bi·va·lent an·ti·bod·y

antibody that causes a visible reaction with specific antigen as in agglutination, precipitation, and so on; so-called because according to the "lattice theory" aggregation occurs when the antibody molecule has two or more binding sites that can crosslink one antigen particle to another; probably a characteristic of the class of immunoglobulin.

bivalent antibody

an antibody that has two or more binding sites that can cross-link one antigen to another.
Mentioned in ?
References in periodicals archive ?
It is commonly believed that latex agglutination immunoassay reactions proceed through linking of particles by the two arms of the bivalent antibody, and this is certainly true for some assays.
Automated homogeneous immunoassay for gentamicin on the dimension clinical chemistry system
These authors and many others subsequently have interpreted these findings with a proposed mechanism of immunospecific bridging between particles by the bivalent antibody molecules.
Despite this excess of antibody, no maximum of agglutination signal (the Heidelberger-Kendall bell-shaped relation) was reached; this suggests some other mechanism than bridging by bivalent antibody.
Kinetics and proposed mechanism of the reaction of an immunoinhibition, particle-enhanced immunoassay

Medical browser ?
Full browser ?