Increased proportion of B cell hybridomas secreting monoclonal antibodies of desired specificity in cultures containing macrophage-derived hybridoma growth factor (IL-6).

The addition of macrophage feeder cells or conditioned medium has been shown to increase the yield of murine hybridomas obtained after the fusion of myeloma cells and activated B lymphocytes. It has been shown recently that the conditioned medium contains a growth factor (HGF) active on newly formed hybridomas and that the human HGF is similar to B cell stimulatory factor 2 which can induce the synthesis of antibodies in transformed B cells. We have compared in several fusion experiments the stimulatory effects of HGF both on the yield of hybridomas and on the number of antibody-secreting hybridomas. The results obtained clearly showed that while the stimulatory effect of HGF on the yield of growth-positive wells was variable and sometimes barely detectable, the proportion of growth-positive wells containing monoclonal antibodies was consistently much higher in the HGF-containing cultures. These results suggest that the majority of the antibody-secreting newly formed hybridomas are sensitive to HGF and indicate that HGF is a very useful culture supplement for the generation of a high number of antibody-producing hybridomas even if it may not increase significantly the yield of viable hybridomas.