Hybridoma technology is a method of producing a large number of identical antibodies (also called monoclonal antibodies). This process begins by injecting a mouse (or other mammal) with an antigen that elicits an immune response. One type of white blood cell, the B cell that produces antibodies that bind to the antigen, are then harvested from the mouse. These isolated B cells are in turn fused with immortal B-cell cancer cells, a myeloma, to produce a hybrid cell line called a hybridoma, which has both the B-cell antibody-producing capacity and the exaggerated longevity and reproducibility of Myeloma. Hybridomas can be cultivated in culture, each culture starting with a viable hybridoma cell, producing cultures each consisting of genetically identical hybridomas that produce one antibody per culture (monoclonal) instead of mixtures of different (polyclonal) antibodies. The myeloma cell line used in this process is selected for its ability to grow in tissue culture and for the absence of antibody synthesis. In contrast to polyclonal antibodies, which are mixtures of many different antibody molecules, the monoclonal antibodies produced by each hybridoma line are all chemically identical.
The production of monoclonal antibodies was invented by César Milstein and Georges J. F. Köhler in 1975. They shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology with Niels Kaj Jerne, who made other contributions to immunology. The term hybridoma was coined by Leonard Herzenberg during his sabbatical year in the laboratory of César Milstein in 1976-1977.
Hybridoma technology has an effective use of the innate functions of both immune cells and cancers, allowing the production of hybridoma cells, which continuously generate monoclonal antibodies specific for the antigens of interest. For the standard generation of hybridoma cells, B lymphocytes must be somatically fused to myeloma cells using various technologies. However, the methods generally do not necessarily result in the selective fusion of target B lymphocytes with myeloma cells. To overcome this problem, we have developed a new hybridoma technology that involves the pre-selection of B lymphocytes with target antigens based on immunoglobulin receptors and selective fusion of myeloma-myeloma cell complexes with electrical pulses. The advanced methodology, called B cell orientation, multiple orientation and stereospecific targeting, may be applicable to the simultaneous production of monoclonal antibodies, the selective production of stereospecific monoclonal antibodies, and also to the efficient generation of human monoclonal antibodies for clinical purposes.