Enhancement of Hybridoma Formation

Efforts to enhance cell fusion technologies can be traced back to the earliest cell fusion attempts. In vitro cell fusion was first described by Lambert, who reported in 1912 the formation of large polykaryons from cultured macrophages treated with lycopodium spores (1). In subsequent years, the appearance of multinucleated cells following spontaneous in vitro cell fusion was sporadically described (2–4), all involving cells of the same lineage.