Applications of spontaneous hybridoma formation and characterization of a bacterial inducer entity

Abstract

Spontaneous hybridoma formation was evaluated in this study. This phenomenon entails the treatment of mice with specific Haemophilus paragallinarum strains to induce the ability of murine splenocytes to fuse with tumour cells both in vitro and in vivo. It was descovered in the process of developing monoclonal antibodies against H. paragallinarum. The antigens on the relevant bacteria were further characterized ·to determine their chemical nature. Progress was also made in determining the optimal culture conditions for the production of bacteria that induce fusion. Two possible applications of the Haemophilus paragallinarum induced fusion were evaluated. The use of fusion inducing Haemophilus paragallinarum as an adjuvant for enhancing the local immune response and simultaneously acting as a fusing agent that simplifies the production of monoclonal antibodies against complex antigens. An animal model is described which enables the correlation of in vivo hybridoma formation with in vitro hybridoma forming ability. This provides evidence that reduced tumour growth rates observed in Haemophilus treated animals can be attributed to in vivo spontaneous hybridoma formation and that Haemophilus treatment therefore can have possible anticancer therapeutic use.