Anti-phosphorylcholine antibody-producing cells in human lymphoblastoid cell lines established by transformation with Epstein-Barr virus

Abstract

Human tonsillar lymphocytes infected with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) were cultured at a cell concentration of 2 × 10 6/ml in a 0.01-ml volume in microtest plates and cell lines composed of relatively small numbers of clones (oligoclonal) were established. Culture supernatants of 1020 cell lines thus established were screened for anti-phosphorylcholine (PC) antibody production by passive hemagglutination (PHA) assay and 10 cell lines with high anti-PC PHA titers were obtained. Plaque-forming cell (PFC) assay of these cell lines revealed that in seven cell lines more than 1% of the total cells and especially in two cell lines more than 10% of the total cells were anti-PC antibody-producing cells. Free PC concentrations required to inhibit PHA (8 PHA titer) and PFC (50% inhibition) correlated well in the same cell lines, but among the different cell lines considerable differences (10- to 1000-fold) of the PC concentration were obtained, indicating that anti-PC antibody-producing cells with different binding affinities to PC were transformed in these cell lines. PHA inhibition by monospecific antisera against immunoglobulin heavy-chain classes revealed that anti-PC antibodies produced in these cell lines were of the IgM class. Cloning experiments were performed and one clone stably producing anti-PC antibodies was obtained.