Antibodies as tailor-made chiral selectors for detection and separation of stereoisomers

Increasing understanding of the stereoselectivity of drug actions has caused regulatory agencies to establish guidelines for the development of stereoisomeric drugs and to demand that manufacturers specify their stereochemical purity. The detection and separation of chiral compounds by direct methods requires the availability of suitable host molecules that can discriminate between their stereoisomers. Although it has been known for almost a century that antibodies of high stereoselectivity can be raised against virtually any molecule, this class of proteins has only recently found wider application as chiral selectors in analytical techniques. This article reviews the use of stereoselective antibodies for the detection of stereoisomers in immunoassays and sensors, and for their extraction and separation in chiral immunoaffinity chromatography.