Monoclonal antibodies to respiratory syncytial virus: detection of virus neutralization and other antigen-antibody systems using infected human and murine cells.

Monoclonal antibodies to human respiratory syncytial (RS) virus-specific antigens can be obtained without preliminary recourse to large-scale culture and purification of the virion. Lytically infected human and persistently infected murine cultured cells expressing RS virus-specific cell surface and cytoplasmic antigens were substituted as priming immunogens and as substrates in solid-phase antibody radioimmunoassays. Seven hybridoma clones secreting murine IgG of either the gamma 1 or the gamma 2a subclass bearing kappa light chains were isolated. Two of the antibodies were specific for cell surface viral antigens, but only one was able to neutralize RS virus infectivity. The five remaining antibodies did not neutralize virus infectivity and were specific for viral antigens associated with large cytoplasmic inclusions as judged by indirect immunofluorescence (IF) analysis on fixed infected cells. Similar IF analysis using live cells revealed that those antigens, associated with the cytoplasmic inclusions in both the human and murine infected cells, were not expressed on the cell surface of the live infected human cells, but were expressed on the cell surface of the live infected murine cells. Monoclonal antibodies generated via the present system will prove useful in the immunological analysis of viral components which are specific pathogenic functions, such as infectivity, and those which may be abnormally exposed at the surface of persistently infected cells.