Determination of the specificities of monoclonal antibodies recognizing members of the CEA family using a panel of transfectants.

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), one of the most clinically important tumor markers, is mainly used in the post-surgical surveillance of patients with colorectal carcinomas. CEA belongs to a large protein family, which includes cross-reacting antigens, e.g., non-specific cross-reacting antigens (NCAs) and biliary glycoprotein (BGP) as well as pregnancy-specific glycoproteins (PSGs). The genes encoding these proteins can be subdivided into the CEA and PSG subgroups. The members of the subgroups share antigenic determinants and show high similarity in amino-acid sequences. Their derived secondary structures show them to belong to the immunoglobulin superfamily. Due to the close relationship of the members of the CEA subgroup, it is very difficult to distinguish between the individual members with MAbs. Here we have used flow cytometric analysis of transfectants expressing individual members of the CEA subgroup as an alternative approach to determine the specificities of 13 MAbs. This allows us to examine the specificities of these antibodies for members of the CEA family, even of those which have not yet been characterized at the protein level. In addition, binding of the MAbs to NCAs expressed by polymorphonuclear cells (PMN) was tested by Western-blot analysis, immunoprecipitation and flow cytometry. Four antibodies bound exclusively to NCA-50/90 and one MAb (80H3) only to NCA-95. MAb 4/3/17 recognizes CEA and BGP on the surface of transfectants and NCA-160 from granulocytes. We assume that NCA-160 is a product of the BGP gene. On granulocytes, which do not express CEA, MAb 4/3/17 is specific for NCA-160 (BGP). Mutual inhibition of the MAbs binding to NCA-50/90 revealed 3 different epitope groups.