A novel monoclonal antibody suitable for the detection of leukotriene B4

•A monoclonal antibody (S27BC6) specific for Leukotriene B4 was developed and characterized.•S27BC6 shows a high specificity for Leukotriene B4 and does not show cross-reactivities to related haptens.•1–300 nM Leukotriene B4 could be detected in ELISA experiments.•Mab S27BC6 is suitable for future applications in immunosensor systems to detect Leukotriene B4 in exhaled breath.

Leukotriene B4 as an inflammatory mediator is an important biomarker for different respiratory diseases like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or cystic lung fibrosis. Therefore the detection of LTB4 is helpful in the diagnosis of these pulmonary diseases. However, until now its determination in exhaled breath condensates suffers from problems of accuracy. Reasons for that could be improper sample collection and preparation methods of condensates and the lack of consistently assay specificity and reproducibility of the used immunoassay detection system. In this study we describe the development and the characterization of a specific monoclonal antibody (S27BC6) against LTB4, its use as molecular recognition element for the development of an enzyme-linked immunoassay to detect LTB4 and discuss possible future diagnostic applications.