help! hybridomas lose their function to produce Ab - (Apr/24/2011 )

Hello

The hybridomas Im growing seem to stop producing antibodies after being expanded in culture. Is it due to somatic hypermutation? Is there anything that can be done to prevent it from occuring?

Hello. If you have polyclonal hybridomas, those that do not produce any antibodies will proliferate faster and dominate the well. If your hybridoma was already monoclonal, then it must have been genetically unstable and most probably lost the chromosome coding the Ig genes.
An alternative explanation is mycoplasma contamination.