Recognition of antigenic differences among neurons using antiserums to clonal neural retina hybrid cells.

Antiserums prepared against hybrid cell strains formed between freshly isolated rodent neural retina cells and a human fibroblast cell line W.I. 18, VA-2 recognize cell surface antigens that are 1) restricted to the neural retina, 2) present in both embryonic and adult retina, and 3) localized to groups of cells within the retina. Normal segregants (i.e., those lines that had retained rodent chromosomes and lost human chromosomes) were used as immunogens in rabbits to produce the antiserums. Antiserums against both whole cells and purified plasma membranes were adsorbed with human parent VA-2 cells and nonneural and neural rodent tissue to remove cross-reacting specificities. All six antiserums studied continued to react with embryonic retina after brain cross-reactivity was removed.