Epitope analysis of monoclonal antibody NCRC-11 defined antigen isolated from human ovarian and breast carcinomas.

NCRC-11 is an IgM monoclonal antibody which defines an antigen found in most epithelial malignancies. The antigen has previously been shown to be a high mol. wt. glycoprotein (greater than 400,000) and in this study, antigen preparations were isolated by immunoadsorbent chromatography from ovarian mucinous and ovarian serous cyst adenocarcinoma and from breast carcinoma. Other monoclonal antibodies, against products in normal human milk, and antibodies of the Ca series (Bramwell et al., 1985) reacted with all three antigen preparations. Tests involving epitope mapping were performed to probe the relationships of the various epitopes to that defined by the NCRC-11 antibody, and, of note, the three antigen preparations from different tumour sources were remarkably similar with respect to their relative levels of epitope expression and to their topographical distribution of epitopes. The major differences in epitope expression could be attributed to the degree of sialylation in the three antigens. The antigens from ovarian tumours expressed I(Ma) blood group determinants (defined by the antibody LICR-LON-M18) which were partially masked by sialic acid. With NCRC-11 defined antigen from breast carcinoma, this determinant was totally masked by sialic acid although neuraminidase treatment clearly exposed epitopes reactive with M18 antibodies.