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Cloning by Limiting Dilution of Hybridoma

Author: Nanci Donacki
Source: Contributed by Nanci Donacki
Date Added: Tue May 14 2002
Date Modified: Tue Apr 27 2004

 Materials
  1.  DMEM, high glucose (Life Technologies, Inc. #10313-021 or equivalent)
  2.  Fetal Bovine Serum (Life Technologies, Inc. #16000-044 or equivalent)
  3.  L-glutamine (Life Technologies, Inc. #25030-149 or equivalent)
  4.  Hybridoma Cloning Factor (Fisher # IG50-0615)
  5. 50 ml sterile centrifuge tubes (Falcon #2070)
  6. 15 ml sterile centrifuge tubes (Falcon # 2099)
  7. 96 well culture plates (Falcon #3072))
  8.  Hemocytometer
  9. Trypan Blue, 0.4% (Life Technologies, Inc. # 630-5150AG)
  10. Multi-channel pipettor and sterile tips
  11. Reagent Reservoir
  12. HT (Life Technologies, Inc. #11067-030)

  Procedure

    1. The day before the cloning, refeed 24-well plates or flasks with fresh medium.
    2. Prepare the cloning medium
      DMEM
      4 mM L-glutamine
      20% FBS
      10% Hybridoma Cloning Factor
    3. Resuspend the cells to be cloned.  Transfer 1 ml to a sterile 15 ml tube. Transfer 50 æl of this suspension to a clean tube for cell and viability counts.
    4. Count the cells and determine the viability.  NOTE:  The viability must be greater than 80% to continue.
    5. For each hybridoma cell line, calculate the dilutions to give 4 cells/ml, 2 cells/ml and 1 cell/ml in cloning medium.
    6. Label 50 ml tubes for each clone and dilution.
    7. Add medium to each tube according to the calculated dilutions.
    8. Serially dilute each clone to 4, 2, and 1 cell/ml.  The final dilution tube should contain 50 ml of cloning medium at 1 cell/ml.
    9. Pour each of the dilutions into a sterile reagent reservoir.  Plate 250 æl/well into 96-well plates - 1 plate at 4 cells/ml, 1 plate at 2 cells/ml and 2 plates at 1 cell/ml.
    10. Complete dilutions and plating for each hybridoma cell line.
    11. Place all plates at 37oC, 8-10% CO2.  Incubate for 5-7 days.
    12. Microscopically examine all plates to ensure cloning and plating efficiency before refeeding the plates. 
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