Recognition of the Polypeptide Core of Mucin by Monoclonal Antibody MUSE11 against an Adenocarcinoma‐associated Antigen

Monoclonal antibody (MAb) MUSE11 detects an adenocarcinoma-associated antigen and is useful for the serodiagnosis of pancreas cancer. We established a sandwich enzyme immunoassay using MAb MUSE11 and MAb DF3 against a breast cancer-associated mucin core protein as a catcher and a tracer, respectively. With this assay system, the binding of the tracer MAb DF3 to an antigen in the human kidney tissue lysate was clearly inhibited by MAb MUSE11. In addition, MAb MUSE11 showed a significant binding activity to the synthetic peptide corresponding to the tandem repeat of a human epithelial mucin core protein. These data suggest that MAb MUSE11 could detect the polypeptide core of a mucin, and may be of use for studying mucin as a gene product.