Production of monoclonal antibody to human esophageal cancer cell line

The immunization of Balb/C mice with esophageal cell line KYSE-50 established from poorly-differentiated esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, resulted in obtaining the monoclonal antibody KYMN-28-5. This monoclonal antibody is of the IgM class and recognizes a carbohydrate antigen contained in glycoproteins with molecular weights of 53 and 56K, and in neutral glycolipids extracted from teratomas. Tissue staining revealed that this monoclonal antibody reacts strongly with malignant tumors but only weakly, or not at all, with normal tissues, apart from squamous epithelial tissue. KYMN-28-5 is thus a useful tumor marker which will improved the accuracy of serological diagnosing squamous cell carcinoma when combined with the measurement of SCC antigen.