Monoclonal antibody to a human brain-granulocyte-T lymphocyte antigen probably homologous to the W 3/13 antigen of the rat.

The monoclonal antibody (F 10-44-2) described in this report recognizes an antigen which by quantitative absorption analysis is found predominantly on spleen, lymph node, bone marrow, thymus, granulocytes and brain, the amount of antigen on these tissues being approximately the same within a factor of 2 or 3. Analysis with the fluorescence-activated cell sorter showed that 29% of thymus cells, 61% of bone marrow cells, 95% of blood mononuclear cells, 98% of lymph node lymphocytes and 100% of granulocytes carried the antigen. With blood mononuclear cells and lymph node lymphocytes, there were two distinct peaks, with one peak labeling very weakly. Double labeling experiments established that the weakly labeled peak contained the B lymphocytes. Studies on frozen sections of thymus established that positive thymocytes were found only in the medulla indicating that the antigen appears late in T lymphocyte maturation. The lymphatic nodules (B lymphocyte areas) of spleen and lymph node appeared virtually negative on frozen sections showing that there was too little antigen on the B lymphocyte surface for confident detection by fluorescence microscopy. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel eletrophoresis of NaB3H4-labeled blood mononuclear cells established that the antigen was a major glycoprotein of the leukocyte membrane and that its mol. wt. was 105000. This antigen shows a striking similarity in biochemistry and tissue distribution to the W 3/13 antigen of the rat and is likely to be the human homologue of this antigen.