Since anti-sperm antibodies were first discovered in the sera of women, the relationship of these antibodies to sterility has been studied by many investigators. In order to determine the antigens of spermatozoa responsible for raising antibodies to spermatozoa in humans, many studies have been carried out by purifying human spermatozoa cell membrane and seminal plasma components. Since it was found that the purification was difficult by physiochemical procedures, the immunoaffinity chromatography bound monoclonal antibody (Mab) to spermatozoa antigens was attempted for this purpose. The establishment of hybridomas producing Mabs to human seminal plasma and human spermatozoa was reported by Shigeta et al. (1980), Isojima, Koyoma & Fujiwara (1982), Lee et al. (1982) and Isahakia & Alexander (1984). The ordinary approaches to obtain the Mabs consisted of xenogenic immunization with human semen and cell fusion of immunized spleen cells with mouse myeloma cells. However, the antigenic epitopes of human spermatozoa, which induced antibody production, are xenogenic for the mouse, and therefore there is a possibility that there is a difference in recognized antigenic epitopes in humans as isotypic and in mice as xenogenic. In order to study these antigenic epitopes, which correspond to antibodies against spermatozoa in women, the establishment of human-mouse hybridomas, which produced anti-semen antibodies as produced in sterile women, became essential. In these studies, we used recently developed cell fusion techniques to fuse immunized human peripheral lymphocytes with mouse myeloma cells.
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