IntroductionIn an attempt to generate antibodies against surface antigens expressed on rare hematopoietic cell populations, monoclonal antibody (MoAb) 97A6 was raised, which selectively recognizes basophils, mast cells, and their CD34 ϩ precursor cells. 1 Stimulation of the basophils from donors allergic for acarids allergen with either anti-IgE antiserum or allergen results in a dose-dependent increase of 97A6 antigen expression, suggesting that the detected antigen plays an important role in cell activation. 1 Immunoprecipitation of the proteins recognized by MoAb 97A6 revealed 2 bands of 150 kd and 270 kd, respectively. 1 However, the identity of the molecule remained unknown. In this report, we show that 97A6 affinity-purified lysates consist of ectonucleotide pyrophosphatase phosphodiesterase-3 (E-NPP3), also termed phosphodiesterase I/nucleotide pyrophosphatase-3 (PDNP3), an ectoenzyme previously found in uterus, prostate, and glioma. [2][3][4] Study design
Affinity purification of 97A6 antigenCoupling of purified MoAb 97A6 to an N-hydroxy succinimide (NHS)-activated Sepharose column (Pharmacia, Freiburg, Germany) was performed according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Lysates from 3 ϫ 10 9 KU-812 cells were loaded on a previously prepared 97A6-Sepharose affinity column equilibrated with washing buffer (10 mM Tris/HCl, 150 mM NaCl, 0.025% NaN 3 , 0.5% Triton X-100, pH 8.0). Bound 97A6 antigen was eluted with 50 mM triethanolamine, 0.1% Triton X-100, 150 mM NaCl, pH 11.5 and collected in tubes containing 1M Tris/HCl, pH 6.7. The collected fractions were screened on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) for appearance of specific bands. In the next step, positive fractions were pooled and used for preparative separations on 7.5% SDS-PAGE. The proteins were visualized by silver staining and the resulting bands were cut for commercial microsequencing. This included tryptic digestion of the proteins, peptide mass fingerprint analysis (MALDI-MS), reverse phase-high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), sequencing of the purified peptides, and search in the NCBI database (Toplab, Martinsried, Germany).
Generation of E-NPP3 transfectant cell lineThe E-NPP3 complementary DNA (cDNA) was prepared and inserted into plasmids as described previously. 2 The calcium phosphate method was used for transfection of 293 embryonic kidney cells with 15 g plasmid. 5 Transfected cells were grown in tissue culture flasks in the presence of 0.5 mg/mL Geneticin. Six days after transfection the cells were stained with MoAb 97A6-phycoerythrin (PE) and the 97A6 ϩ fraction (9% of total cells) was sorted on a FACSVantage cell sorter (Becton Dickinson, Heidelberg, Germany). After 3 sorting rounds the cells stably expressed E-NPP3 on the cell surface. The transfectant cells were stained with MoAb 97A6-PE and analyzed on a FACSCalibur (Becton Dickinson).
Purification of peripheral blood basophilsFicoll-Hypaque-selected buffy coat peripheral blood (PB) cells from healthy donors were stained with 97...