Myeloma cells used in hybridoma technology are selected to be:
Establishing stringent selection requires myeloma background auxotrophic for purine salvage, achieved by exposure to 8-azaguanine, purine analogue structurally similar to guanine. Salvage competent cells convert 8-azaguanine via HGPRT to 8-azaguanosine monophosphate incorporated into mRNA and rRNA causing miscoding, translational errors, and lethal proteotoxicity triggering unfolded protein response. Spontaneous HPRT1 mutants survive because they cannot metabolize analogue, accumulating no toxic nucleotides. Surviving subclones harbor frameshift, nonsense, or missense mutations in coding exons
Ref: Szybalski & Szybalska 1962 HGPRT negative mutants 8-azaguanine; ATCC SP2/0 Ag14 datasheet selection mechanism.