Production and potential use of monoclonal antibodies against polio viruses.

Lymphocyte hybridomas secreting monoclonal antibodies against different strains of polio virus type 1, 2, or 3 have been produced. For this purpose Balb/C mice were immunized with purified and inactivated virus suspensions and their splenocytes were fused with P3X63Ag8 mouse myeloma cells. Screening for antibody production was performed in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Antibodies were produced either in cell culture or in Balb/C mice by passaging the hybridomas as solid or ascitic tumors, after they had been cloned at least three times by limiting dilutions in microtiter plates. Specificities of a number of these monoclonal antibodies were determined in the ELISA and in a neutralization test using different polio virus subtypes. The results indicate that for epidemiological studies monoclonal antibodies may prove to be very useful tools. Also the use of monoclonal antibodies for vaccine production (affinity chromatography; characterization of viral substructures) and routine vaccine control purpose (antigen quantification; neutralization of vaccine virus) seems attractive. Two of the neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against polio virus type 1, showed a selective immunoprecipitation with VP1, which suggests that VP1 is an important polypeptide for the induction of neutralizing antibody in vivo.