Monoclonal antibodies to human IgM

Availability of specific antihuman IgM antibodies is very important for developing diagnostic kits for infectious diseases that are highly prevalent in Indonesia. In line with such idea, an attempt to construct hybridoma cells producing antihuman IgM antibodies is done by fusing NSl myeloma cell line with immunized mouse spleen celLs. Hybridomas producing anti human IgM antibodies have been obtained and antibodies produced by several exhaustedly cloned hybridomas has been characterized. Those antibodies are not reactive to human IgG, IgA nor IgG and lgA-deprived human serum and belong to IgG2a subclass. Diagnostic, Mouse hybridoma, Monoclonal antibody, antihuman IBM Heterologous anti sera or polyclonal antibodies were popular up to the mid 1980. Those anti sera had been used for diagnostic, therapeutic as well as prophylactic purposes.r However, since the introduction of hybridoma technology by Kohler and Milstein many of them have been replaced by monoclonal antibodies.2'3'a's'6'7'8'9 In fàct, at present numerous monoclonal antibodies to etiologic agent of infectious diseases has been used or potentially used for diagnostic purposes.4's'6'7 On the other hand, it is well known that in any infection an antibody response is induced by the etiologic agents of infectious diseases. In primary infection, IgM antibodies is first synthesized followed by IgG antibodies. Following recovery of the infection, titer of IgM antibodies will then decrease and may not be able to be detected after several months. In secondary inf'ection, serum titer of IeM will also increase though not as much as Igc.tl'tl Therefore, detection of specific IgM antibodies would be very helpful for confirming diagnosis. [n accord with such idea, we conduct an attempt to construct murine monoclonal antibodies to human IgM. Department of Microbiology Faculty of Medicine University of lrrclonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia METHODS