Comparison of monoclonal antibodies with ferret sera for the characterization of influenza A (H3N2) virus strains in a computer system.

: A panel of murine monoclonal antibodies was generated against five different influenza A (H3N2) virus strains, isolated between 1977 and 1980. Monoclonal antibodies with defined specificities in haemagglutination inhibition tests for the strains against which they had been raised were selected. Eventually 18 of these were chosen and tested against a large number of recent H3N2 isolates. The results were compared with those obtained with antisera from ferrets immunized with the five strains mentioned above and with similar ferret sera after adsorption with heterologous strains. The serological data obtained with these three panels of antibodies were subjected to a theoretical pattern fitting computer analysis. A good correlation was observed between the results obtained with these three systems. However, the unadsorbed ferret sera proved to be less discriminating whereas the monoclonal antibodies provided additional information which could not be obtained with the other two systems.