Podoplanin (PDPN) has been utilized as a lymphatic endothelial cell marker especially in pathological diagnoses. Therefore, sensitive and specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting PDPN are needed for immunohistochemical analyses using formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues. Recently, anti-PDPN mAbs against many species, such as human, mouse, rat, rabbit, dog, cat, bovine, pig, and horse were established in our studies. However, anticetacean (whale) PDPN (wPDPN) has not been established yet. In this study, we immunized mice with wPDPN-overexpressing Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)-K1 (CHO/wPDPN) cells, and screened mAbs against wPDPN using flow cytometry. One of the mAbs, PMab-237 (IgG1, kappa), specifically detected CHO/wPDPN cells by flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry. Our findings suggest the potential usefulness of PMab-237 for the functional analyses of wPDPN.
Keywords: PDPN; PMab-237; lymphatic endothelial cells; whale podoplanin.