Stimulation of proliferation and immunoglobulin production of human-human hybridoma by various types of caseins and their protease digests.

We have studied the effect of such milk proteins as caseins, lactalbumin, and lactoglobulin, on proliferation and immunoglobulin production of human-human hybridoma HB4C5 cells. It was found that alpha-, beta-, and kappa-caseins stimulated both proliferation and IgM product ion of human-human hybridoma HB4C5 cells, while the activities of alpha-lactalbumin and beta-lactoglobulin were negligible. To localize the active sites of these caseins, effect of protease treatments on the activities were examined. When caseins were digested with trypsin, casein digests stimulated proliferation of the hybridoma, but not their IgM production. When kappa-casein was digested with chymosin and fractionated to p-kappa-casein and glycomacropeptide, both fragments stimulated proliferation of the cells, but only p-kappa-casein fragment stimulated IgM production. These results indicate that kappa-casein has at least two proliferation stimulating sites and an IgM production stimulating site in the p-kappa-casein region.