Quantification of Polyreactive Antibodies in Cardiolipin Using Dinitrophenol

Antibodies play a critical role in the immune system to recognize and defend the body from antigens. While most antibodies bind to one unique antigen due to the affinity maturation process, some antibodies bind with low affinity to multiple unrelated antigens, which is termed polyreactivity. In serum, there are many different polyreactive antibodies, of which have different affinities. Thus, using molecular modeling software, we quantified levels of polyreactive antibodies in serum, specifically Cardiolipin. We determined where DNP binds to Cardiolipin and how tightly bound by calculating energy levels, which could be used as an indicator of levels of polyreactive antibodies and can help with future drug discovery using polyreactive antibodies