13209 IUPAC Gold Book - heterophile antibody 10.1351/goldbook.13209 13209 current synonym: heterophilic antibody 1 Antibody raised against an antigen from one species, which also reacts against antigens from other species. Heterophile antibodies are usually of low affinity and are a common cause of problems with immunoassays. The existence of such antibodies explains observations of the presence of antibody against antigens from a variety of species without immunization. Heterophile antibodies commonly arise from viral infection. Forssman antigen https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13158 PAC, 2012, 84, 1113. 'IUPAC glossary of terms used in immunotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 1175 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-11-06-03) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13209/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13209/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13209/plain Citation: 'heterophile antibody' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13209 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-06-29T14:20:45+00:00