ANTIBODIES TO ESTRONE-PROTEIN CONJUGATES: I. IMMUNOCHEMICAL STUDIES

Abstract

The primary purpose of the present study was to determine if steroids, when conjugated by stable covalent bonds to proteins, could act as haptenic groups in inducing steroid-specific antibodies. Estrone was converted to estrone- 17-isocyanate and the latter reacted with various proteins to give estrone- 17-carbamidoprotein conjugates. Rabbits were immunized with the conjugate prepared from human serum albumin and the resulting antisera were shown by various immunochemical techniques to contain antibodies specific to the estronyl residues of this conjugate. A turbidimetric assay method for the estimation of estrone-like compounds is described.