Induction of plasmacytomas that secrete monoclonal anti-peptide antibodies by retroviral transformation.

ABL-MYC, a retrovirus that coexpresses v-abl and c-myc, was used to infect six BALB/c mice that had been immunized twice with a KLH-conjugated peptide that consisted of the 18 carboxyterminal amino acids of protein kinase C-eta (PKC-eta). All mice developed transplantable, monoclonal plasmacytomas, and five out of six plasmacytomas secreted antigen-specific antibodies, even after transplantation. All these antibodies recognized PKC-eta on Western blots of crude cell lysates and did not cross react with other isoforms of the PKC family.