Monoclonal antibodies and functional cell lines: Progress and applications

Trendsin Biotechnology, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1985 on fibroblast cultures and the rest are from blood buffy coat cells. Obviously each of these production strategies has its merits and drawbacks and the potential superiority of one of them will depend on several scientific and practical factors. A special section of the book is devoted to T-cell culture. Four papers concentrate on the problems of particular systems; alloreactive T-cell cloning, productive murine leukemia virus infection of T-lymphoblastoid cells, construction of human T-cell hybrids and cloning of human T-lym-

107 phocytes. This is akogether a very informative section, contributing substantially to the field of modern cell biology. In general, the material presented provides a good overview of US university-based research on animal cell culture. There are only two contributions from Europe and only five from industry. It remains to be seen, however, whether the number of industrial papers reflects the efforts being undertaken by the profit-oriented enterprises or not. The impressive progress in the past and the obvious potential applica-

True in 1982 HEPATITIS B: THE VIRUS, THE DISEASEAND THE VACCINE edited by I. Millman, T. K. Eisenstein and B. S. Blumberg, Plenum Press, 1984. $39.50 (xi + 251 pages) I S B N 0 306 41723 5 These are the proceedings of a symposium held in 1982 in Pennsylvania and published two years later in the form of camera-ready typescripts. Publishers are the first to claim that camera reproduction of typescripts is cheap (hopefully) and rapid (in this case two years later!). Inevitably, therefore, in a

rapidly progressing field such as hepatitis, events have overtaken the work described. This is no fault of the Editors, who selected experts in the subject with skill and perspicacity, nor of the authors who have since published their papers elsewhere. Is there anything new to be learnt even by the most assiduous reader? The 'Australia antigen story', the discovery of which is one of the great contributions to preventive medicine, has been told many times before. The preparation of hepatitis B vaccine derived from the plasma of carriers, the results of the early trials of this vaccine, the polypeptide and the chemically synthetic preparation and

Versatility of monoclonal antibodies MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES AND The book is divided into five sections FUNCTIONAL CELL LINES: PROGRESS containing 13 chapters on different AND APPLICATIONS applications of MoAb technology. A short, 'cook book' methods section is edited by R. H. Kennett, K. B. Bechtol included as an appendix and will be and T. J. McKearn, Plenum Press, useful for those investigators who have 1984. $49.50 (xvii + 426pages) I S B N 0 not already established the techniques 306 41567 4 in their laboratories. As with all books compiled from works of several contri~This is the second book in a series of butors, some redundancy is inevitable three dealing with monoclonal anti- and the time in press limits most bodies (MoAb). The first, Monoclonal reference work to articles published Antibodies-Hybridomas: A New Dimen- before early 1983. Most chapters are sion in Biological Analyses, published in well written and present excellent 1980, was a review of the then current reviews of relevant literature. A few technology of MoAb production, general principles are recurrent in screening, and early applications. The several chapters: the concept that current edition is directed more toward MoAb can recognize primary amino the use of MoAb for solving bio- acid sequences that may be present in logically important problems. The unrelated as well as identical functional degree of sophistication of studies proteins; the power of acrylamide geldescribed in these chapters exemplifies to-nitrocellulose transfer and identificathe rapid progress that has been made tion of proteins (Western blots) as molecular tools; and the usefulness of MoAb in the last four years.

tion of the techniques in human and animal therapy as well as in the production of new pharmaceuticals have lead ~ to an increased involvement of companies during recent years. There is no question that eukaryotic cell culture is a fast-growing field making great contributions to both bioscience and biotechnology. A. FIECHTER

Department of Biotechnology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-8093 Ziirich, Switzerland. even expression of the surface antigen protein in Escherichia coli, yeast and mammalian cells by recombinant DNA technology have all been described in great detail elsewhere. Eisenstein states in the introduction that 'the symposium may be unique in that it focussed on a product which was first marketed less than three months ago'. This was true in November 1982, but it hardly makes compulsive reading in 1985. ARIEJ. ZUCKERMAN

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, Keppel St, London VJC1E 7HT, UK. in identifying individual cell types in mixed populations. Three chapters were particularly useful for me. Dr Hakamori reviewed the current information on antibodies to cell-surface carbohydrates. In addition to listing the sources and binding specificities of natural antibodies and MoAb to carbohydrates structures, he points out the almost unique expression of these determinants on certain tumors, including melanoma, colorectal carcinoma and Burkitt's lymphoma. Subtle antigenic variants of carbohydrates may be the specific targets most useful for tumor imaging and therapy. Details of complex carbohydrate structures recognized by MoAb are presented. The chapter on MoAb in the treatment of human leukemia by Levy et al. summarizes properties of MoAb likely to be important. While the literature review is somewhat dated, there are some interesting data on pre-clinical experiments in primates. The problems encountered in early clinical trials

Trendsin Biotechnology, Vol.3, No. 4, 1985

108 are also discussed with special attention to human anti-mouse MoAb reactions and antigenic modulation of leukemia cells. Finally, the chapter by Buck et al. on development of production methods for human MoAb is particularly useful. Four approaches are described: (1) classical hybridomas with mouse or human parent myelomas, (2) EpsteinBarr Virus transformation, (3) establishment of B-cell lines with lymphokines, and (4) recombinant DNA technology. The emphasis is on the first approach with details presented concerning the fusion partners and the stability and production levels of the resultant hybrids. Hopefully a more complete review of recent developments with the other approaches will be

presented in the third book in this series. Other topics covered included: antigenic structure of the acetyl choline receptor and of several enzymes; analysis of antigenic determinants of adhesionrelated membrane glycoproteins, cytoskeletal proteins, and neuronal cell populations; considerations of clinical applications of MoAb for classification and treatment of neuroblastomas and for parasitology; and the molecular genetics of oncogene products and T-cell clones. Conspicuously absent were discussion of tumor imaging, preparation of MoAb to defined peptide sequences, and the recent progress in delineating murine and human lymphocyte subpopulations.

Promoting biosensors ANALYTICALUSES OF IMMOBILIZED ENZYMES by George G. Guilbault, Marcel Dekker, 1984. £74.20 (ix + 453 pages) I S B N 0 8247 7125 7 This text is partly an updated version of Guilbault's last book Handbook of Enzymatic Analysis (1976) focusing on immobilized enzymes, which is natural since immobilized enzymes in enzyme probes and enzyme reactors have become important alternatives to conventional enzymic analysis. Advantages of immobilized enzymes include: reusability, low cost per test (economy), decreased sensitivity to inhibitors and activators producing good operational stability, simple systems and ease of handling. The first part of the text is a very short description of the basic properties of enzymes, which starts off with tables on the structure of amino acids and coenzymes and then very briefly introduces some fundamental enzyme kinetics. This is followed by an account of the importance of enzymic analysis in various fields and a short survey of the most common experimental techniques used in enzymic analysis. The treatment of these topics is, of necessity, very superficial but for a reader who is not familiar with biochemistry it will provide some useful background information and contains some relevant, if not recent, literature references. The properties and advantages of immobilized enzymes are discussed in a fairly comprehensive chapter, giving a

wide variety of examples of immobilization techniques for different support materials and applications. Although the literature cited (with a few exceptions) is not up-to-date, this chapter gives the reader enough information to take up work on enzyme probes. Guilbault has probably published more reports on enzyme electrode probes that anyone else in the field. Consequently, it is not surprising that this topic occupies a third of the present book. Most aspects of enzyme electrodes are covered, including probes using whole cells and tissue slices. These have attracted increasing attention in recent years because of some of their advantages over enzyme probes: isolation of the enzyme(s) in question is not necessary, preparation is easy, stability is frequently better than for the pure enzyme and cofactor regeneration is 'built-in'. It is probable that a bioanalyst who wants to set up an electrode method will be able to find his analyte in one of the tables compiling enzyme electrode probes for substrates or enzymes, or among the 341 references cited in this chapter. Routine and automated analysis based on immobilized biocatalysts normally employs enzyme reactors in continuous flow systems, for instance carried out as a flow injection analysis. The most common transducers are oxygen/hydrogen peroxide electrodes or spectrophotometers. In addition, Guilbault describes new alternatives, such as thermal detectors and luminescence detectors. The use of enzymes in membranes and layers is exemplified

Generally, the authors tended to stress specific areas of their own research and give other studies less attention. Nevertheless, the detailed reviews generated for these specialized fields make the book worth reading for scientists wishing to update their knowledge of adjacent fields of interest. Hopefully, the approaches found to be useful for these areas of analyses will spark ideas leading to applications in other fields. I eagerly await publication of the third book in this series on molecular genetics. STEPHEN J. KENNEL

Biology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA. by Guilbault's own silicone rubber pads for fluorometry and by magnetic stirrers containing enzyme. There are, however, several instruments on the market which employ dry reagent chemistries, enzymes included, and this rapidly emerging technique, especially recognized in clinical chemistry, deserves more space ttaan the brief mention it is given. The last part of the book contains a rather extensive list of suppliers of soluble and immobilized enzymes and describes various commercial concepts for analytical instruments based on immobilized enzymes. Besides those devices which are mentioned, many other systems are produced today, especially on the Japanese market. However, in spite of many promising and attractive features, most of these commercial instruments have had limited success. The reason for this is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps the competition afforded by HPLC analysis has been too great. The lack of interfacing techniques, especially for sample handling in biotechnology, could also be a contributing factor. Even if Guilbault merely touches on this subject, his book will perhaps serve to promote biosensors. At least, it demonstrates their wide applicability. In conclusion, this book, in spite of its comparatively high price, can be recommended to anyone interested in analytical problems in biotechnology. BENGT DANIELSSON

Pure and Applied Biochemistry, Chemical Centre, University of Lund, PO Box 124, S-2200 Lund, Sweden.