Anti‐BLA.36 monoclonal antibody shows reactivity with hodgkin's cells and B lymphocytes in frozen and paraffin‐embedded tissues

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Abstract
A newly developed monoclonal antibody, anti‐BLA.36, raised against a Hodgkin cell line, was shown to have reactivity with Reed‐Sternberg cells and activated B lymphocytes and appears to be distinct from other antibodies which identify antigens of hematopoietic cells.Anti‐BLA.36 was evaluated in B5‐fixed paraffin‐embedded tissue from 16 cases of Hodgkin's disease of various types and 35 cases of non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas representative of the different major subtypes. The specificity of anti‐BLA.36 was compared with other antibodies that have been used to mark Hodgkin's cells and B lymphocytes: namely, L26, LN‐1, Leu‐M1 and Ber‐H2, as well as UCHL‐1, a pan‐T lymphocyte marker. In addition, a subset of the cases was evaluated using frozen tissue in order to validate the staining characteristics of anti‐BLA.36 as observed in fixed paraffin sections. Anti‐BLA.36 was found to react with Hodgkin's cells more consistently than the other antibodies used in this panel. The antibody reacted with an antigen on Reed‐Sternberg cells and their variants (Hodgkin's cells) in all four subtypes of Hodgkin's disease, and with a subset of reactive and malignant B lymphocytes, but not with T lymphocytes. It may, therefore, be useful in the evaluation of non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas.Finally, this is the first antibody raised to a Hodgkin's cell line which also consistently marks reactive and malignant B cells, but not T cells. The implications of this observation are discussed in relation to the cellular origin of the Reed‐Sternberg cell and the overall nature of Hodgkin's disease.

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