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Non-animal-derived monoclonal antibodies are not ready to substitute current hybridoma technology

Nature Methods volume 17, pages 1069–1070 (2020)Cite this article

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To the Editor — We write on behalf of the COSCE (Confederation of Spanish Scientific Societies) Transparency Agreement on Animal Research, supported by the EARA (European Animal Research Association). In May 2020, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) released a recommendation on the development of non-animal-derived antibodies, urging government authorities, funding agencies and publishers to endorse the use of these antibodies to improve scientific reproducibility1. These recommendations were based on the work done by the Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC) of the European Union Reference Laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (EURL ECVAM). Recent correspondence to Nature2 and Nature Methods3 claims that non-animal antibodies are ready to replace animal-derived ones in all known applications. In our view, however, both the EC-JRC document and the published correspondence contain distorted perceptions of the current possibilities for non-animal-derived antibodies. While we are all committed to replacing animal experimentation with alternative methods, these methods need further scientific validation to justify replacing the use of animals without affecting the desired outcome of the experiment.

In our opinion, there are still major concerns barring the substitution of hybridoma technology with animal-free methods, such as insufficient technological development, inconsistent efficiency depending on the application, and difficulty in implementation at a global scale.

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References

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Acknowledgements

We thank the COSCE societies for their support (https://cosce.org/).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CINBIO, Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, Spain

    África González-Fernández

  2. UGC Endocrinología y Nutrición, Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga-IBIMA, Hospital Regional Universitario de Málaga, Málaga, Spain

    Francisco J. Bermúdez Silva

  3. Immunology Service, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla-IDIVAL, Santander, Spain

    Marcos López-Hoyos

  4. Immune System Development and Function Unit. Department of Cell Biology and Immunology, Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) (CBMSO-CSIC/UAM), Madrid, Spain

    César Cobaleda

  5. Animal Models by Genetic Manipulation Unit, National Centre for Biotechnology (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) (CNB- CSIC) and Biomedical Research Networking Center on Rare Diseases (Instituto de Salud Carlos III) (CIBERER-ISCIII), Madrid, Spain

    Lluís Montoliu

  6. Viral Immunology, Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) (CBMSO, CSIC-UAM), Madrid, Spain

    Margarita Del Val

  7. European Animal Research Association (EARA), London, UK

    Kirk Leech

Authors
  1. África González-Fernández
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  2. Francisco J. Bermúdez Silva
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  3. Marcos López-Hoyos
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  4. César Cobaleda
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  5. Lluís Montoliu
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  6. Margarita Del Val
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  7. Kirk Leech
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Contributions

The authors contributed equally to this work.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to África González-Fernández.

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Competing interests

A.G.-F. was cofounder of the spinoff company NanoImmunotech.

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González-Fernández, Á., Bermúdez Silva, F.J., López-Hoyos, M. et al. Non-animal-derived monoclonal antibodies are not ready to substitute current hybridoma technology. Nat Methods 17, 1069–1070 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-020-00977-5

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