POLYETHYLENE-GLYCOL AND ELECTRIC FIELD-MEDIATED CELL-FUSION FOR FORMATION OF HYBRIDOMAS

This chapter compares the techniques of polyethylene glycol and electric field-mediated cell fusion and discusses the areas where electrofusion may be advantageously employed. In contrast to other modes of electrofusion, the batch-type variant is relatively simple. It is applicable to soluble as well as to cellular antigens and allows comparison with polyethylene glycol (PEG)-induced fusions starting from the same parental cell suspensions. The accumulated data confirm that electrofusion results in higher hybridoma yield as compared to PEG-induced fusion. On the average, 5–10 times more hybridomas per unit number of spleen cells arise from electrofusion. This holds true for a great variety of experimental settings, which take into account the type of antigen (tumor cells, leukocytes, immunoglobulins, haptens, enzymes, and hormones), species (mouse or rat), the type of serum (fetal calf or horse), the source of PEG, the type of selection medium (azaserine versus HAT), pretreatment of myeloma cells with pronase, or (limited) modification in the ratio of spleen cells to myeloma cells. Another advantage of electrofusion is a more vigorous growth of hybridomas immediately after fusion. © 1993, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.