Characterization of monoclonal antibodies to the globular domain of collagen IV.

Monoclonal antibodies were produced against NC1, the globular noncollagenous domain of collagen IV, isolated from bovine glomerular basement membrane. Cells from eight positive wells were cloned and the resulting monoclonal antibodies were studied in detail by immunofluorescence on human kidney sections, by Western blot and by ELISA against denatured subunits from NC1 hexamers and against native NC1 hexamers from different tissues. The monoclonal antibodies could be divided into two groups. Firstly, those monoclonal antibodies that, in ELISA and Western blot, reacted with peptides related to the alpha 1 chain of collagen IV and stained all basement membranes in the kidney. Secondly, a monoclonal antibody that, in ELISA and Western blot, reacted with peptides related to the Goodpasture antigen, the alpha 3 chain of collagen IV. When this antibody was applied to human kidney sections it stained the glomerular basement membrane very intensively. Bowman's capsule and some tubular basement membrane were also stained, although to a lesser extent. This staining pattern is the same as that observed with sera from patients with Goodpasture's syndrome. An attempt was made to separate different subtypes of the NC1 hexamer. A monoclonal antibody from the first group was used to make an affinity chromatography column. Glomerular basement membrane digested with collagenase was separated on this column and the collected fractions were analyzed by ELISA and SDS-PAGE. The result from this study support the idea that glomerular basement membrane is composed of at least two different subtypes of type IV collagen.