Bispecific Antibody-Producing Hybrid Hybridoma and Its Use in One-Step Immunoassays for Human Lymphotoxin

Abstract

A hybrid hybridoma cell line secreting a bispecific monoclonal antibody (MAb) was constructed by fusing horseradish peroxidase (HRPO)-immunized mouse splenocytes with previously established mouse hybridomas secreting anti-human lymphotoxin (hLT). This cell line was grown in ascitic fluid in mice to obtain large quantities of hybrid M Abs and a bispecific antibody, reacting with both HRPO and hLT, was separated from the monospecific antibody or other inactive immunoglobulin populations by hydroxylapatite chromatography. Sodium dodecylsulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis demonstrated that the bispecific antibody molecule contained two different types of heavy and light chains of both anti-HRPO and anti-hLT origin. The bispecific antibody was used to establish one-step enzyme immunoassays (EIAs) employing competitive and sandwich systems. The simple sandwich EIA was able to detect 1-100 U/ml of hLT and there was good correlation (r=0.96) between hLT concentrations measured by the one-step EIA and a bioassay using L929 cell-lysis.