Immune regulation by monoclonal antibodies: failure to enhance mouse skin allografts.

Monoclonal anti-H-2k alloantibodies were analyzed for their capacity to enhance the survival of B10.A skin grafted onto B10.D2 recipients. Included were five anti-class I and four anti-class II antibodies. In contrast to conventional B10.D2 anti-B10.A serum, none of the individual anti-class I or anti-class II monoclonal antibodies induced enhancement. The same negative results were obtained with various mixtures of anti-class I, anti-class II, or anti-class I + anti-class II antibodies. The failure to induce enhancement was not due to inefficient antigen binding in vivo, because monoclonal antibodies were as effective as conventional B10.D2 anti-B10.A serum in the induction of acute antibody-mediated graft rejection, and in the opsonization of 51Cr-labeled B10.A leukocytes injected into B10.D2 recipients pretreated with antibody. These results demonstrate that monoclonal antibodies cannot always substitute for conventional sera, at least not in immune regulation. They also show that although opsonization may be a prerequisite for the induction of enhancement, it does not guarantee that enhancement will invariably occur.