CEA-specificity of CEA-reactive monoclonal antibodies. Immunochemical and immunocytochemical studies.

Four carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) reactive monoclonal antibodies Parlam 1, 4, 5 and 6 were studied in respect to reactivity with CEA and its cross-reacting antigens (NCA-1, NCA-2, BGP). In immunochemical studies (ELISA and SDS-PAGE followed by immunoblotting) Parlam 4 did not react with these crossreacting antigens, whereas Parlam 1, 5, and 6 demonstrated variable reactivity with these antigens. As expected, by immunocytochemistry Parlam 1, 5, and 6 stained bile canaliculi in the liver (due to crossreactivity with BGP), pneumocytes and splenic tissue (NCA-1) to an extent comparable with the results in biochemical tests. In contrast with the immunochemical observations, however, Parlam 4 showed slight but distinct reactivity with splenic granulocytes (NCA-1) and hepatic bile canaliculi (BGP). Relative epitope specificity of the monoclonal antibodies was tested in blocking experiments. These showed that Parlam 1 and 5 detect the same epitope on CEA as they block each others binding completely. In other combinations monoclonal antibodies block each others binding only partially, indicating that they detect different or partially overlapping epitopes. These results suggest that CEA specific epitopes may partly overlap with epitopes on crossreacting antigens. In this context, we propose that on crossreacting antigens epitopes exist that are structurally similar to epitopes on CEA or that some epitopes on CEA may consist of a spatial configuration which involves CEA specific as well as non-CEA specific structures. The antibody will show the highest affinity towards CEA, as this molecule contains the uniquely matching or complete epitope and lower affinity towards the crossreacting antigen with an imperfectly matching or only partially available epitope.