Journal of Neuroimmunology, 15 (1987) 251-262 251 Elsevier JNI 00510 Development and characterization of five monoclonal antibodies against neuronal cell surface antigens Evaluation of their use in cell separation by affinity chromatography D. Chatterjee, C. Mandal and P.K. Sarkar Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, 4, Raja S. C. Mullik Road, Calcutta 700 032, India (Received 15 September 1986) (Revised, received 4 February 1987) (Accepted 4 February 1987) Key words." Monoclonal antibody; Immunoaffinity chromatography; Neuronal subpopulation Summary Five monoclonal antibodies directed against rat neuronal cell surface proteins have been isolated and characterized following fusion of mouse SP2/O-Ag-14 myeloma cells and spleen cells from BALB/c mice immunized with neuron-specific membrane proteins. The antibodies displayed cell specificity in binding and elicited precipitation of different polypeptides from total neuronal cell surface proteins. These antibodies are of potential use in the isolation of a neuronal subpopulation by immunoaffinity chromatography. The work represents the application of hybridoma technology for the isolation of specific types of neuronal populations. Introduction The identification of different subpopulations of neural cells, their localization in the CNS and determination of their biological function is one of the most intriguing problems of neurobiology. Recently, monoclonal antibodies to a wide variety of neural antigens (Barnstable 1982) have been produced using the hybridoma technol- Address for correspondence: Dr. Diptendu Chatterjee, Department of Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, 4, Raja S.C. Mullik Road, Calcutta 700 032, India. 0165-5728/87/$03.50 © 1987 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (Biomedical Division)