A grant from the National Science Foundation will support them in this investigation. Low and nonproducing hybridomas can also grow faster and overtake the cultures where they're grown. The antibodies at the center of Heath and Carpenter's study are known as monoclonal because they come from a single type of hybridoma. While antibodies harvested from blood react with many substances, monoclonal antibodies respond to a specific type of bacteria, virus or other foreign material. Monoclonal antibodies are valuable to scientists because they can be used for very specific purposes, such as detecting pregnancy or the presence of a disease-causing bacteria.
Antibodies contain two pairs of protein chains.
One pair, called the light chain, is shorter, and the longer pair is the heavy chain. The team suspects that the chromosomes that produce the heavy chain have been lost, causing shut down of antibody production. To test this hypothesis, Heath and Carpenter are collaborating with Dr. Kristi Harkins of ISU's Cell and Hybridoma Facility. The group will culture hybridomas and test them to separate the producers from nonproducers. Our work could have a significant impact on large scale industrial antibody production.