Monoclonal antibody to a human leukocyte-specific membrane glycoprotein probably homologous to the leukocyte-common (L-C) antigen of the rat.

The monoclonal antibody (F 10-89-4) described in this study recognizes an antigen which by quantitative absorption analysis is absent from human brain, kidney, liver, heart, erythrocytes, platelets and normal serum, but is present on spleen, lymph node, chronic lymphatic leukemia cells, bone marrow, thymus and granulocytes at a ratio of 1:1:0.8:0.3:0.1, respectively. Analysis with the fluorescence-activated cell sorter showed that 100% of thymocytes, lymph node lymphocytes, blood mononuclear cells and granulocytes carry the antigen, while 83% of bone marrow cells are positive. There was marked heterogeneity in the amount of labeling of thymocytes, with 3 major peaks. There was also heterogeneity of labeling of blood mononuclear cells and lymph node lymphocytes, with a weakly staining hump containing approximately 20% of the cells in the case of lymph node lymphocytes. Double labeling experiments demonstrated that the weakly staining cells of blood and lymph node were B lymphocytes, while frozen sections of thymus showed that the antigen was expressed most weakly in subcapsular cortical thymocytes, and most strongly on medullary thymocytes. Biochemical studies established that the antigen bound to lentil lectin columns, and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis studies using NaB3H4-labeled blood mononuclear cells established that the antigen was a major glycoprotein of lymphocytes, and that its molecular weight was in the region of 190000 to 215000.