Tumor antigen on benign adenomas and on murine lung carcinomas quantitated by a two-site monoclonal antibody assay.

TSP-180 is a Mr 180,000 cell surface protein found on several murine lung carcinomas but not on fibroblast or sarcoma cell lines. Monoclonal antibody 135-13C binds to TSP-180 with high affinity but could not be used to quantitate the protein in tumors and normal tissue (Cancer Res., 41: 3465-3470, 1981). TSP-180 was purified from a transplantable BALB/c carcinoma (line 1 cells) by immunoaffinity chromatography and used as an immunogen to produce another monoclonal antibody (346-11A) to a different epitope on the molecule. A two-site solid-phase radioimmunoassay for TSP-180 was developed to quantitate TSP-180 in tissue extracts. The assay can detect as little as 3 ng of TSP-180 in samples up to 10 mg of protein. Analyses of several lung carcinoma cell lines confirmed that TSP-180 is present in all (five of five) cell lines ranging from 40 to 800 ng per mg of cell protein extract. Mouse tissues from normal and tumor-bearing mice were analyzed for TSP-180. Values for line 1 tumors growing i.m. were about 70 ng of TSP-180 per mg of protein. Normal tissue from normal and tumor-bearing mice contained low levels of TSP-180 from less than 0.3 ng/mg of protein for liver to a high of about 11 ng/mg of protein for leg muscle. Finally, small benign urethane-induced adenomas (1 to 2 mm) from BALB/c mice had moderate amounts of TSP-180 (11 ng/mg of protein), while two primary lung adenocarcinomas in the same animals had 20 and 47 ng/mg of protein, respectively, suggesting that TSP-180 expression may increase with increasing cancer of these tumors. Analyses of individual urethane-induced lung tumors from A/J mice showed that 11 of 13 carcinomas had high levels of TSP-180, while only 1 of 6 adenomas had a detectable amount of TSP-180, and that was at a moderate level. Specific quantitation of tumor markers in normal, benign, and malignant lung tissue may be helpful in identifying different levels of gene expression as tumors progress to more malignant states.