production and purification of polyclonal antibody against melatonin hormone

nowadays immunochemical techniques have played a very important and valuable role in quantitative and qualitative assays of liquid compounds of the body. producing antibody against immunogenes is the first step to make immunochemical kits. in this study production and purification of polyclonal antibody against melatonin has been considered. this hormone which has several important functions in physiological conditions such as migraine, cirrhosis, mammary gland cancer and other diseases, is the most important pineal gland secretion. this gland is a circumventricular organ of brain and according to histological and anatomical studies, it is a high secretory organ, that secretes active biological substances like melatonin, oxytocin, serotonin and ect. in this study, melatonin has been considered as hapten and has become an immunogen by being linked to the bovine serum albumin. then, by the immunization of three white new zeland rabbits that had the booster injections in regular intervals, the antibody titer was detected to be 1/2000, by using checkboard curves, and with the use of melatonin linked to penicillinase as a labeled antigen, the titer was detected 1/200. finally an antibody with high purification rate has been obtained, which can be used in immunochemical assays like ria, elisa, and eia.