[Characterization and analysis of antibodies against HBsAg produced by somatic cell hybrids].

Somatic cell hybrids which produced antibodies against HBsAg were established by fusing the splenocytes of BALB/c mice immunized with purified HBsAg and the myeloma cell line P3X63Ag8 using polyethylene glycol 1,000. Mouse ascites were obtained by inoculating 13 hybridoma clones, and 8 of them produced high PHA titer antibodies of 10(2) to 10(6) against HBsAg. These antibodies in ascites were analysed by way of Sephadex G-200 gel filtration, micro-Ouchterlony method and 2ME, DTT treatment. According to these analyses, one of these antibodies has belonged to IgM and the other 7 to IgG. By RPHA titration using tannic acid-treated SRBC coated with these antibodies, it was suggested that 2 clonal antibodies were against the common antigenic components of HBs subtypes and the other 5 against the component r. According to the results of RPHA test and PHA suppression test using these clonal antibodies and 116 samples of HBsAg positive sera in Hokkaido, one subtype of HBsAg was further classified into several groups. These antibodies will be valuable for many virological and serological investigation, for instance, for the detailed antigenic analyses of HBsAg and for searching a source of HBs infection containing feto-maternal infection.