# MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES TO BLADDER TUMOR ANTIGENS

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 1989 · $162,868

## Abstract

The goals of this proposal are to define bladder tumor associated
antigens through the development or murine and human
monoclonal monoclonal and to determine if a monoclonal antibody
defined phenotype can separate functionally distinct but
histologically similar malignant tumors.

Murine monoclonal antibodies reactive with bladder tumor
associated antigens will be produced using bladder cancer cell
lines as the source of antigen.  Cell membrane preparations and
other means of purification, e.g., lectins, will be utilized for
immunization prior to fusion.  A variety of immunization
schedules will be employed to enhance the production of
antibodies to bladder tumor associated antigens.

Human monoclonal antibodies will be produced by the fusion of
human lymphocytes with the human myeloma cell line KR12.  To
increase the yield of monoclonal antibody with high specificity,
lymphocytes for fusion will be obtained from regional lymph nodes
of patients undergoing cystectomy or from the blood of patients
receiving intravesical immunotherapy with bacillus Calmette
Guerin.  In addition, in vitro immunization of the lymphocytes
prior to fusion will be performed.  When possible, patient's
lymphocytes will be immunized in vitro with autologous cultured
tumor cells.  This should significantly decrease the problem of
immunization with alloantigens.

Murine and human monoclonal antibodies that bind to bladder
cancer cells will be evaluated as prognostic indicators in patients
with superficial bladder tumors.  This will be accomplished by
correlating antibody binding to the patient's clinical courses.
Antibody binding will be determined by immunoperoxidase assay
on histologic and cytologic preparations.  The assays will be
evaluated both with standard light microscopy and with
microspectrophotometry.  The latter technique can quantify the
degree of immunoperoxidase staining and can correlate that with
the amount of DNA in the same cell.

The experiments described above will define new bladder tumor
associated antigens and develop new classifications of bladder
cancer based on antigenic phenotype.  This will lead to an
increased understanding of bladder cancer and facilitate both the
selection of appropriate therapy in individual patients and the
development of new methods of treatment.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3174603
- **Project number:** 5R01CA036933-06
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **SAM.gov UEI:** GNJ7BBP73WE9
- **Principal Investigator:** H. BARTON GROSSMAN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1989
- **Award amount:** $162,868
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1984-04-01 → 1990-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3174603

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3174603, MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES TO BLADDER TUMOR ANTIGENS (5R01CA036933-06). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3174603. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*