Production of specific antibodies against protein A fusion proteins.

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Abstract
The gene for Staphylococcal protein A was fused to the coding sequence of bacterial beta‐galactosidase, alkaline phosphatase and human insulin‐like growth factor I (IGF‐I). The fusion proteins, expressed in bacteria, were purified by affinity chromatography on IgG‐Sepharose and antibodies were raised in rabbits. All three fusion proteins elicited specific antibodies against both the inserted protein sequences and the protein A moiety. In the case of IGF‐I, the protein A moiety in the fusion protein may act as an adjuvant since native IGF‐I alone is a poor immunogen. The results suggest that the protein A fusion system can be used for efficient antibody production against peptides or proteins expressed from cloned or synthetic genes. To facilitate such gene fusions a set of optimized vectors have been constructed.