Production of bispecific murine monoclonal antibodies by transfer of selection genes performed by retrovirus vectors

摘要

The use is described of retrovirus vectors for the transfer of genes which confer dominant resistant traits on hybridomas whose somatic fusion leads to the stabilization of double hybridomas secreting bispecific monoclonal antibodies. The vectors used are engineered so as to be incapable of replication, being dependent in this on the gene complementation by a helper virus provided by specific "packaging" lines. The infection process comprises co-culturing of the hybridomas with irradiated "packaging" cell lines, previously transfected with the vectors producing the recombinant retroviruses, which do not include the helper virus in their genome. The simple and rapid transfer of dominant selection markers allows the fusion of hybridoma lines by the standard technique of somatic fusion. The resulting double hybridomas have been used for the production of hybrid molecules which conserve the parental specificity. The merits of the system compared to standard systems is its low cost, and the possibility of having available an increasing number of selection markers.