Nelson N. H. Teng

Human monoclonal antibody recognizing an antigen associatedwith ovarian and other adenocarcinomas

Summary MS2B6, a human monoclonal antibody derived from a patient with advanced ovarian cancer, has beenused to study the distribution and characteristics of its target antigen. The MS2B6 antigen was detected by immunoperoxidase studies in 41 of 41 epithelial ovarian cancers and in the majority of nonovarian adenocarcinomas. Among normal tissues the MS2B6 antigen was found in the adult epithelia of the fallopian tube, endometrium, endocervix, colon, bronchus, breast, sweat duct, and large renal ducts. No detectable antigen was found in peritoneal epithelia, tissue stromal cells, spleen, thymus, or blood-borne cells. Immunoblotting analysis showed that the MS2B6 epitope resides on polypeptides of 38, 44, and 60 kd. The cellular location of the MS2B6 antigen was studied with immunoperoxidase and immunofluorescent staining and immunoelectronmicroscopy of ovarian cancer ascites tumor cells. The results suggest that in ascites tumor cells the MS2B6 antigen is located in a layer of the peripheral cytoplasm beginning just below the cell membrane. MS2B6 may be useful as an imaging or therapeutic agent

Use of Heteromyelomas in the Enhancement of Human Monoclonal Antibody Production

Hybridoma technology opened an entire new era in both basic and applied immunology. It has been almost a decade since the original landmark development of the murine hybridoma technology (1). At the present time it is routine to generate murine monoclonal antibodies of defined specificity by fusion of mouse myeloma cells with spleen cells from an immunized mouse. The ready availability of murine monoclonal antibodies as biological probes has changed the approaches in many diagnostic and therapeutic areas of medicine.