Immortalization of antigen selected B cells.

This paper reports the generation of monoclonal antibody producing hybridomas from a small number of antigen-specific B cells selected by panning on antigen-coated dishes and rosetting with antigen-coupled paramagnetic beads. Anti-HIV positive B cells from spleen could be recovered by panning with an efficiency of 5% and a purity of 24%. Immunobead selection of anti-HIV positive B cells from the same mice yielded a recovery of 17% and a purity of 7%. Various experimental conditions with respect to the selection of specific B cells were investigated, leading to an optimized protocol for the isolation of a limited subset of B cells. The selected cells retained their property to produce immunoglobulins and could be clonally expanded in the presence of human T cell supernatant and irradiated murine thymoma helper cells to generate sufficient cells for a mini-electrofusion with NS-1 myeloma cells. Up to 78 specific hybridomas could be generated from one anti-HIV positive B cell. An overall efficiency of specific B cell immortalization of up to 10% was obtained.