Monoclonal autoantibodies from rats with inherited retinal dystrophy

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat carries a recessive gene for retinal dystrophy and is used as an experimental model for human retinal degenerative conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). It has been suggested that an autoimmune response to retinal antigens may contribute to the retinal degenerative processes. In this study, fusions of RCS rat splenic lymphocytes with the rat Y3 Ag 1.2.3 myeloma cell line, resulted in primary fusion cultures, some of which were positive to retinal S-antigen and others to insoluble components of rod outer segments. Three fully cloned IgM monoclonal antibodies were generated and the reaction of 2 of them to S-antigen and opsin was confirmed by immunoblotting.