What Are Haptens?}

Submitted by: ALex Howard

when you are very little, you might be afraid of walking along, however, when you are with your elder sister or brother, you have the courge to go. In immunology, there is also a little boy who can not do anything when he is alone- hapten. Accurately, it is a small molecule which is incapable of acting as an antigen alone, but when it sucessfuly find a large carrier to bind itself to, such as a protein, it will act as a stimulant to the production of antibodies.

You might want to know why? Well, its because of their small sizes, haptens are failed to be recognized by immune cells, no doubt the immune response against them.

So, are haptens useless? No. In fact, there are many drugs are haptens, such as penicillin. When penicillin is injected or ingested, it will kake chemical reaction with proteins in the body to form a hapten-carrier complex, which result in the life-threatening syndrome known as anaphylaxis.

Besides, due to their specific charateristics, haptens are a hot topic among immunologists. They use haptens in laboratory research and some types of diagnostic testing. Acutully, these small molecules-haptens have been studied since the early 1900s.

At that time, haptens are haptein, a Greek word, meaning “to fasten or bind”. This term was first introduced into usage by the pioneering German bacteriologist and immunologist Paul Erlich (1854-1915). However, even in nowadays, it is also clear to see from the word hat these molecules have to bind with other molecules so as to become functional. Haptes are known as incomplete or partial antigens, and then they must find protein molecules( to be carriers) to become an antigen so as the immune system can recognize them.

Since then, researchers have conducted many studies to learn more about them. Until now, thousands of haptens have been discovered and mapped, and researchers also have set up several databases of haptens, making them they more convenient to study haptens. It is also said that, haptens can be useful in immune assays, which are designed to test a patient’s immune system or to look for specific antibodies and antigens which may be present in the body.

To understand the secrets of haptens are a part of the larger study of immunology. Researchers are looking deep into haptens and try to find out how haptens work. More progress in today will definetely help the antibody research.

For Drugs Of Abuse, Biochemical Markers, Other Haptens, Growth Promoters, Antimicrobial Drugs, Anti-Parasitic Drugs, Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, Aminoglycosides, Food Safety,etc, Creative Diagnostics can provide what you need. Take the Streptavidin, FITC-Conjugated (B. Mallei) for example. It is a 52.8 kDa protein purified from the bacterium Streptomyces avidinii. Streptavidin homo-tetramers have an extraordinarily high affinity for biotin (also known as vitamin B7 or vitamin H). With a dissociation constant (Kd) on the order of ?10?14 mol/L, the binding of biotin to streptavidin is one of the strongest non-covalent interactions known in nature. Streptavidin is used extensively in molecular biology and bionanotechnology due to the streptavidin-biotin complex’s resistance to organic solvents, denaturants (e.g. guanidinium chloride), detergents (e.g. SDS, Triton), proteolytic enzymes, and extremes of temperature and pH.

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