The production of human monoclonal autoantibodies from patients with rheumatoid arthritis by the EBV-hybridoma technique.

Rheumatoid lymphocytes tend to transform 'spontaneously' in vitro because of prior infection with Epstein Barr virus (EBV). They are particularly difficult to use in experiments involving cell hybridisation, because in the conventional half-HAT system unfused transformed cells may be confused with hybrids. We describe how the HAT-sensitive, ouabain-resistant human B lymphoblastoid cell line KR4, originally developed to 'rescue' EBV induced B cell clones, can be fused successfully with peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with rheumatoid arthritis to produce unequivocal hybrids.