Concept:
HAT medium is a special selection medium used in hybridoma technology to produce monoclonal antibodies. After fusing antibody-making B-cells with myeloma cells, HAT medium is used to select only the fused hybrid cells.
Step 1: The name HAT is itself an abbreviation of its three key ingredients: Hypoxanthine, Aminopterin, and Thymidine.
Step 2: How it selects — aminopterin blocks the main (de novo) pathway for making nucleotides, so cells must use the salvage pathway with the enzyme HGPRT, using the supplied hypoxanthine and thymidine. Unfused myeloma cells lack HGPRT and die, while the hybridomas survive because the B-cell partner supplies the enzyme.
Answer: Option (3) — HAT medium contains Hypoxanthine, Aminopterin, and Thymidine. (3)