A Rapid Method To Characterize Mouse Igg Antibodies And Isolate Native Antigen Binding Igg B Cell Hybridomas

B cell hybridomas are an important source of monoclonal antibodies. In this paper, we developed a high-throughput method to characterize mouse IgG antibodies using surface plasmon resonance technology. This assay rapidly determines their sub-isotypes, whether they bind native antigen and their approximate affinities for the antigen using only 50 mu l of hybridoma cell culture supernatant. Moreover, we found that mouse hybridomas secreting IgG antibodies also have membrane form IgG expression without Ig alpha. Based on this surface IgG, we used flow cytometry to isolate rare gamma 2a isotype switched variants from a gamma 2b antibody secreting hybridoma cell line. Also, we used fluorescent antigen to single cell sort antigen binding hybridoma cells from bulk mixture of fused hybridoma cells instead of the traditional multi-microwell plate screening and limiting dilution sub-cloning thus saving time and labor. The IgG monoclonal antibodies specific for the native antigen identified with these methods are suitable for in vivo therapeutic uses, but also for sandwich ELISA assays, histology, flow cytometry, immune precipitation and x-ray crystallography.