Monoclonal antibodies to an epithelial ovarian adenocarcinoma: distinctive reactivity with xenografts of the original tumor and a cultured cell line.

Four monoclonal antibodies (mAb) (8C, 10B, M2A, and M2D) were produced against the human epithelial ovarian adenocarcinoma cell line, HEY. The affinity constants of binding of the mAb to cultured HEY cells were 8 X 10(8) M-1 (M2D) and 10(9) M-1 (8C and 10B). mAb 8C reacted with a major glycoprotein of Mr 90,000 on the surface of HEY cells. The four mAb differed from previously reported mAb to epithelial ovarian adenocarcinomas on the basis of their reactivity with cultured ovarian adenocarcinoma cell lines using a cell-binding radioimmunoassay, and their staining of cryostat sections of various human normal and tumor tissues using an immunoperoxidase reaction. All four mAb reacted with s.c. tumors derived by injecting cultured HEY cells into thymectomized CBA/CJ mice. However, only two of the four mAb (8C and 10B) also reacted with s.c. tumors of the original HEY xenograft from which the cultured cell line was derived. In addition, mAb 8C and 10B reacted by immunoperoxidase staining with 2 and 4 different cases, respectively, of 11 epithelial ovarian adenocarcinomas examined. Cultured HEY cells were adapted to grow i.p. in BALB/c-nu/nu mice and the i.p. tumors retained their reactivity with the monoclonal antibodies. These tumor-bearing mice offer a useful model system for studying the potential of mAb, especially 8C and 10B, for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with peritoneal extension of epithelial ovarian adenocarcinomas.