Use of anti-cholera toxin IgA-secreting hybridoma cells for the elaboration of an antigen-specific IgA-ELISPOT-assay.

Hybridoma anti-cholera toxin (CT) IgA-secreting cells, because of their monoclonal character, were used to establish and optimize an ELISPOT-assay for CT-specific IgA-secreting cells. The use of hybridoma cells easily and quickly allowed the elaboration of a sensitive, specific and reproducible ELISPOT-assay, which was successfully applied to enumerate intestinal lamina propria lymphoid cells secreting anti-CT IgA in mice immunized twice intraintestinally with CT. Monoclonal antibody-secreting hybridoma cells, if available against a given antigen, are suggested as ideal cell suspensions to elaborate new ELISPOT-assays to study antibody responses at the cellular level.