Author Description

This extensive volume is the first and only complete account of the experiments and analyses reported at the Fourth International Workshop on Human Leucocyte Differentiation Antigens. Scientists from over 500 laboratories gathered to jointly evaluate or submit 1,100 different monoclonal antibodies to human leucocyte surface molecules, with the results compared and summarized to produce a careful description of 89 human leucocyte antigens, 35 of them fully characterized for the first time. Antigens specific for certain leucocyte lineages subsets, or differentiation states, or shared by all leucocytes, are featured. Details are given regarding their distribution, molecular structures, and function. The volume also witnesses the emergence of two clear tendencies. The functional importance of broadly distributed, non-liineage restricted, surface molecules of human leucocytes is beginning to be widely appreciated, and the molecular cloning and sequencing of genes coding for surface molecules with the help of monoclonal antibodies and newly developed expression vector systems, now play a major role in the development of this field. This work will prove invaluable to immunologists, cell biologist, molecular biologists, hematologists, and pathologists. It will remain the standard reference work in the field for years to come.