Production of monoclonal antibodies against tooth germs of hamster or rat by in vitro immunization

The in vitro immunization procedure for the production of monoclonal antibodies has several advantages over the in vivo procedure; e.g. it requires a much smaller amount of immunogen and only a few days are required for immunization. However, no in vitro immunization procedure for the production of monoclonal antibodies against tooth germs has been reported. By means of in vitro immunization, we tried to produce monoclonal antibodies against the components of tooth germs which would be useful for immunohistochemical investigation of the development of tooth germs. Spleen cells of mice were immunized with a homogenate of molar tooth germs from hamsters or rats. The hybridomas produced were screened by immunohistochemical examination of paraffin sections of tooth germs. We obtained five monoclonal antibodies reacting with the dental tissues; ameloblasts, odontoblasts, enamel, dentin, predentin, and dental sac. One of them reacted specifically with only ameloblasts and one with ameloblasts and enamel, but the others are not specific for individual dental tissues. The results demonstrate that in vitro immunization is a satisfactory method for producing monoclonal antibodies useful for immunohistochemical investigation of tooth germs.