Antibody Production

Antibodies are produced by the immune systems of animals in response to the presence of foreign substances. Antibodies raised against regions of the viral coat protein (CP) (epitopes) can be exploited for virus detection; in 1977 Clark and Adams described the use of antibodies in ELISA to rapidly test a large number of plant sap samples for the presence of virus (1 ). Antibodies produced against virus particles can also be used in Western blots (see Chapter 45 ) to assay CP expression in transformed plants (2 ,3 ).