[Construction and expression of murine human chimeric antibody with specificity for CD3 antigen. I. Cloning and sequencing of the VH gene].

By using synthetic oligonucleotide primers specific for VH gene sequences of mouse IgG, PCR amplification of the VH gene from the cDNA of HIT3a hybridoma cells, a murine monoclonal antibody specific to CD3 was successfully performed. The amplified fragment has been cloned into pGEM-7Zf(+)plasmid DNA. Southern analysis shows that the cloned fragment hybridized strongly to both the universal oligonucleotide and DNA probe of the J region of mouse IgG Hc. Analysis of the sequences of recombinant plasmid DNA indicates that the cloned VH gene is 353 bp in size and VDJ4 rearrangement in which the D fragment comes from DSP 2.2, and is grouped into II B subset.