Patent ID: 8329874

Claim:
A purified antibody or antigen-specific fragment thereof that: (1) is specifically reactive with nitrotyrosine in the context of an amino acid sequence that is characteristic of collagen type II and does not recognize nitrotyrosine in a sequence-independent manner; (2) has binding specificity for an epitope contained in the amino acid sequence LQY:NO 2 MRA (SEQ ID NO:7), in which Y:NO 2 therein is a nitrotyrosine residue; and wherein the epitope contains the Y:NO 2 residue and is characteristic of collagen type II; and (3) is raised against a peptide consisting of the sequence (X aa ) m LQY:NO 2 MRA(X aa ) n (SEQ ID NO:5), wherein X aa denotes any amino acid, Y:NO 2 is a nitrotyrosine residue, and m and n are independent integers of from 1 to 10.