New parental cell lines for generating human hybridomas

In contrast to the success achieved with the production of hybridomas in the mouse system, creating human hybridomas is problematic. The reason is believed to be a lack of suitable malignant human cell lines. The work presented here demonstrates the establishment of three human parent cell lines--two of which are of T cell origin--by installing hypoxanthine guanosine phosphoribosyl transferase (HGPRT) and/or thimidine kinase (TK) deficiencies into the leukemic cell lines REH, 1301 and SKW-3. In order to isolate true hybridomas, selection procedures must guarantee complete death of the enzyme-deficient malignant parent cells. In this respect sublines with a combined HGPRT and TK deficiency proved to be superior to those with only one enzyme deficiency, especially in combination with the newly developed hypoxanthine/aminopterine/thymidine/azaserine (HATA) selection medium. However, selection media should be of low nonspecific toxicity. This was shown to be a particular property of the thymidine-free azaserine/hypoxanthine (AH) selection medium. Preliminary data show an extraordinary ability of one subclone of the hypoxanthine guanosine phosphoribosyl transferase-negative T cell line SKW-3 to generate human T-T hybridomas. They are of a stable, nearly tetraploid karyotype and express new surface antigens, thus providing new possibilities for the investigation of human T lymphocyte function by means of hybridoma technology.