Isolation and characterization of monoclonal antibodies to structural and nonstructural herpesvirus saimiri proteins.

An improved screening procedure was applied to identify hybridomas secreting antibodies to herpesvirus saimiri-specified polypeptides among the products of fusions between SP2/0 myeloma cells and spleen cells from mice immunized with purified virus particles or virus-specific DNA-binding proteins. Twenty-four monoclonal antibodies were isolated with specificities for 13 different virus-specified polypeptides (or complexes of polypeptides), including the major capsid protein of the virus (150K), the 160K and 130K structural proteins, a 108K structural phosphoprotein, structural glycoproteins, the nonstructural early 76K protein, early nonstructural DNA-binding proteins of 48 to 51K and 110K and the major immediate-early protein of 52K. Antibody to the virus 76K protein precipitated a host protein of 62K, and a number of antibodies specific for host proteins were also isolated. Antibody to the 52K immediate-early polypeptide precipitated the delayed-early 76K protein, whereas the antibody to the 76K protein did not precipitate the 52K polypeptide. These observations suggest the presence of epitopes common to virus and host proteins and an antigenic site common to an immediate-early and a delayed-early virus protein. The antibodies were used to examine the sites of intracellular accumulation of virus polypeptides, the formation of complexes of structural proteins, and the postsynthetic processing of virus proteins. The present collection of monoclonal antibodies provides a set of reagents with specificities for members of each of the major kinetically or functionally distinct classes of virus gene products.