Application of a solid-phase immunofluorometric assay to the selection of monoclonal antibody specific for the adenovirus group-reactive hexon antigen.

An immunofluorometric assay (IFMA) has been evaluated as a screening assay to detect monoclonal antibodies to the group-specific antigen of the adenovirus hexon component. The antibodies were produced as mouse ascitic fluids from hybridoma cells generated from Balb/C mice immunized with purified adenovirus type 2 hexon component and crude adenovirus type 3 culture supernatants. The purified IgG fractions from all monoclonal ascitic fluids tested were identified as the IgG1 K mouse isotype. Antibody titers ranged from 102,400 to 204,800 by the IFMA, from 200 to 12,800 by indirect FA, and were generally nonreactive in counterelectrophoresis, complement fixation, hemagglutination-inhibition, serum neutralization, and immune electron microscopy titrations. The IFMA is a reliable method for quantitating low levels of specific antibody in large numbers of test samples, and is therefore ideal as a screening assay for monoclonal antibody in tissue culture fluids and in mouse ascitic fluids.