Antibodies with high titer and affinity to small molecules are critical in the field of vaccines against drugs of abuse, antidotes to toxins, and immunoassays for compounds. However, little is known regarding how properties of small molecules have influence and which molecular descriptors could indicate the degree of the antibody response. On the basis of our previous study, we designed and synthesized two groups of hapten molecules with varied hydrophobicity to investigate the relationship between the properties of the small molecules and the antibody response in terms of titer and affinity. We found that the magnitude of the antibody response was positively correlated with the degree of molecular hydrophobicity and related descriptors. This study provides insight into the immunological characteristics of small molecules themselves and useful clues to produce high-quality antibodies against small molecules.
Keywords: antibody response; hapten; molecular descriptor; relationship; small molecule.