CYTO-TOXIC CELLS INDUCED IN TUMOR-BEARING RATS BY A STREPTOCOCCUS PREPARATION (OK-432)

  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 72  (5) , 692-699
Abstract
The characteristics of the cytotoxic cells induced by i.p. injections of an immunoadjuvant, OK-432 (picibanil), into ACI/N rats bearing syngeneic bladder cancer, BC47, were examined. The cytostatic activity, but not the cytolytic activity, of peritoneal macrophages was augmented when normal or cancer-bearing rats were treated with OK-432. The plastic nonadherent cells of the peritoneal exudate cells from OK-432-treated cancer-bearing rats, but not lymph node cells or spleen cells, killed all ACI/N rat bladder cancers tested and ACI/N rat hepatoma cells and Meth-A mouse sarcoma cells. The plastic nonadherent cells from OK-432-treated normal rats also killed hepatoma cells and Meth-A cells, but not bladder cancer cells. The cytolytic cells that were induced in cancer-bearing rats by OK-432 treatment, and showed cytolytic activity specific for bladder cancers, sensitive to anti-rat thymocyte serum and complement and were nylon-adherent and Fc receptor-negative. The cells that showed nonselective cytolytic activity were nylon-adherent and insensitive to anti-rat thymocyte serum and complement.