Monoclonal antibodies to central nervous system antigens

Thirty monoclonal antibodies produced by mouse hybrid myelomas which react with antigens in hamster or mouse nervous system tissues were derived. Using these antibodies as probes with indirect immunofluorescence and immunoperoxidase techniques, we can selectively identify by morphological criteria many of the structural components of the brain seen at a light-microscopic level, including the neutrophil, neuronal cytoplasm, nuclei, axons, astrocytes and ependyma. Some of the antibodies display cytoskeletal and filamentous structures, including intermediate filaments, microfilaments, neurofilaments, glial and ependymal filaments. The specificity to neural tissue components of these hybridoma antibodies was assessed by their reactivity to mouse and hamster non-neural tissues and selected mouse, hamster, rat and human cultured cell lines. Of the 30 clones analyzed, specificity ranged from 3 clones reacting only with grey matter of mouse and hamster brain, one clone reacting only with axons in animal and human brain, to 19 clones reactive with both neural and non-neural tissue components.