Generation of human monoclonal autoantibody-producing cell lines by epstein-barr virus transformation of autoreactive B lymphocytes and by somatic cell hybridization techniques: Application to the analysis of the autoimmune B cell repertoire

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was used to immortalize human peripheral B lymphocytes committed to the productio of autoantibodies in healthy subjects and in patients with various autoimmune diseases. EBV-transformed B lymphocytes producing human monoclonal autoantibodies were fused with the human-mouse heterohybridoma F3B6 cells to stabilize the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAb). The present method of generating human B cell clones producing mAbs now makes it possible to analyze in detail the nature of human autoantibodies with respect to antigen-binding specificity, affinity, corresponding autoepitopes, and the variable (V) region structure.