SERUM-MEDIATED PROTECTION OF NEOPLASTIC CELLS FROM INHIBITION BY LYMPHOCYTES IMMUNE TO THEIR TUMOR-SPECIFIC ANTIGENS

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Abstract
The combined effect of immune lymphocytes (lymphnode cells or blood lymphocytes) and serum from tumor-bearing donors was assessed in four tumor systems with the use of the colony inhibition assay: (a) Moloney virus-induced sarcomas in mice, (b) Shope papillomas in rabbits, (c) spontaneous mammary carcinomas in mice, and (d) two adenocarcinomas of the colon and two adenocarcinomas of the lung in humans. The neoplasms studied had previously been shown to possess tumor-specific antigens, against which cellular immunity could be detected in vitro. In all four systems, it was found that sera from hosts with progressively growing neoplasms could abrogate the inhibitory effect of lymphocytes which were immune to the specific antigens of the corresponding tumor type. Studies with Moloney sarcomas, in particular, showed that the serum effect had at least some degree of specificity.