Specificity of the monoclonal anti-I antibody (Hy).

In previous work we found that a monoclonal cold hemagglutinin from patient Hy strongly bound antigens contained in stage IV breast cancer sera. To infer the chemical structure of the antigens expressed in the cancer sera, we studied the specificity of the antibody (Hy). The antibody (Hy) had I specificity, based on agglutination scores with adult and cord red blood cells. The binding of the antibody to synthetic and milk oligosaccharides was determined using a solid phase enzyme immunoassay (EIA). The anti-I antibody (Hy) strongly bound LacNAc0-Me, LacNAc1----6Gal, LacNAc1----6 (LacNAc1----3)Gal, LacNAc-1----6 alpha GalNAc, LacNAc1----3LacNAc, and LacNAc, 0.05, 0.06, 0.09, 0.22, 0.35 and 0.75 mM giving 50% inhibition, respectively. The anti-I antibody (Hy), similar to the anti-I antibody (Ma), strongly bound LacNAc1----6Gal, but it differed from the anti-I antibody (Ma) in its cross-reactivity with the i sequence. The anti-I antibody (Hy) showed similar reactivities as the hybridoma monoclonal antibodies M18 and M39 with LacNAc1----6Gal and with the i-active sequence. The EIA procedure is a useful alternative to either radioimmunoassay or immunoprecipitation method in the study of anti-I,i specificities.