Antibody specificity is limited, and different antigens may cross‐react to varying degrees with the same antibody. An example is monoclonal antibody 42PF elicited against a 29‐residue random‐coil pep‐tide. 42PF cross‐reacts with a triple‐stranded coiled coil of related amino acid sequence, and there was circumstantial evidence for an antibody‐induced opening of the coiled coil [Leder, L., Berger, C., Bornhauser, S., Wendt, H., Ackermann, F., Jelesarov, I. & Bosshard, H. R. (1995) Biochemistry 34, 16509–16518]. To reveal in a direct way that antibody 42PF induces the opening of the coiled coil, we have compared the rates of H/D exchange of amide protons in the free and in the antibody‐bound coiled‐coil peptide using electrospray‐ionization mass spectrometry for the analysis of deuterium incorporation. Complete H/D exchange lasted several days in the tightly folded coiled‐coil conformation while in the presence of antibody 42PF the overall exchange took only minutes, corresponding to a thousand‐fold decrease of protection of the most slowly exchanging amide hydrogens of the folded coiled coil. This demonstrates that the antibody induced a considerable opening of the coiled coil.