Reactions of antisera prepared against HeLa cells and normal fetal liver cells with adult human tissues.

HeLa cells grown in tissue culture have certain components in common with normal human tis sues. For example, Miller and Hsu (6) have shown that antiserum prepared against HeLa cells in rabbits is cytotoxic for fibroblasts and epithelial cells derived from adult and newborn skin and also from tonsils, as well as for HeLa. Moreover, the anti-HeLa serum gave a precipitate with an extract of human skin, and human skin could ab sorb out of the antiserum the components which were cytotoxic for HeLa cells. Goldstein (2) has shown that antisera prepared against HeLa or against cells derived from normal fetal liver were capable of lysing in the presence of complement tissue-cultured cells of strains HeLa,1 J-96 monocytic leukemia, normal fetal liver, and normal fetal intestine. Absorption of the antisera with any of these cells removed the cytotoxicity for HeLa or for the cells of normal origin. Because of the cross-reaction with normal hu man tissues of antisera prepared against tissue culture cells of human origin, it was important to determine which components of human tissues re acted with the antisera. This was done as reported here by using anti-HeLa serum and serum pre pared against a cell strain derived from normal fetal liver tissue as immunohistochemical stains on sec-