The newly developed monoclonal antibody SA7D6 exhibits potential for detection of Staphylococcus aureus

Lack of a monoclonal antibody (MAb) with a high specificity and sensitivity against Staphylococcus aureus hampers easy and fast detection of the pathogen. Cell wall proteins of S. aureus were used for immunization and spleenocytes were fused with SP2/0-Ag14 cells. After cloning, SA7D6 hybridoma cells were selected for characterization due to high specificity to S. aureus surface proteins. SA7D6 reacted with all S. aureus reference strains and 100% of food and human isolates (50/50), but not with other species. Western Blotting revealed that SA7D6 reacted with a specific 75 kDa antigen but not with protein extracts of other bacterial species. The sensitivity of SA7D6 in ELISA was 10² and 10³ CFU/mL in pure culture and sterile milk, respectively, which was 100× more sensitive than commercially available MAb. The newly developed SA7D6 was specific and has potential for detection of S. aureus.