Antibody developments for metal ions and their applications

Metal ions are beneficial or toxic in part depending on their identity, valence state, and concentration. Antibodies against radioactive metal ions can be used in medical diagnosis and therapy, while antibodies against heavy metal ions are widely used in the trace element analysis of the immunoassay. This review focuses on the recent advances in antibody developments for metal ions and their applications. We exhaustively enumerated 18 chelate or ligand structures for metal hapten synthesis, which were proven to produce antibodies that cover almost 33 metal ions. The binding properties of these antibodies for their corresponding haptens were also discussed both in the structural foundation and molecular foundation. Furthermore, the representative applications of the antibodies used in medical diagnostics and therapy, and immunoassays were summarized. Finally, we illustrated the present challenges in high specific metal ion antibody preparation, and in immunoassay development. The future perspectives were also discussed.