Malignancy of Polyoma Virus Infection in Mice in Relation to Stress2
- 1 January 1963
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute
- Vol. 30 (1) , 101-112
- https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/30.1.101
Abstract
Stress by avoidance learning and high-frequency sound was applied to weanling Webster-Swiss mice (BRVS) inoculated at birth with polyoma virus by the intracardiac route. The subsequent incidence of tumors and time-mortality distributions were compared with those obtained in unstressed control mice inoculated in the same manner. Palpable tumors initially appeared in some mice of all groups at 48 to 55 days of age, and 96 percent of all animals receiving injections subsequently died with tumors. Eighty-one percent of the mice had multiple tumors at death. Salivary-gland and lung tumors were most frequently seen at the time of death with about equal incidence in 62 to 65 percent of the 195 mice of all groups scored for tumors. Kidney, skeletal, and subcutaneous (including mammary) tumors were observed in 20, 23, and 19 percent of the animals, respectively, whereas overt tumors at other sites were much less frequent. The few survivors at 487 days of age showed no tumors, but possessed hemagglutination-inhibition antibodies in high titers as did the animals that died earlier with tumors. There were no significant differences among the various stressed and control groups in incidence, extent, or location of tumors relative to the times of death. However, there was evidence of a slight diminution in the frequency of overt tumors at all sites in the unstressed control population compared with the stressed populations. The calculated median survival times ranged from 149 to 162 days; there were no statistically significant differences among stressed and control populations in any parameters of the time-mortality distributions. Although the survival times, ranging from 56 to 415 days, reflected a prolonged and variable disease process, the cumulative mortality curves for all groups of mice followed the same log-normal distribution. The polyoma virus-induced malignancies led to a reduction in median lifespan by a factor of at least two thirds. Nevertheless, the stressing procedures used had no substantial effect on either over-all tumor incidence or survival times.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- STUDIES OF POLYOMA VIRUS .1. HEMAGGLUTINATION AS A MEASURE OF VIRUS MASS AND ANTIBODY TO THE VIRUS1960
- Oncogenic Effect of Tissue-Culture Preparations of Polyoma Virus on Fetal MiceJNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 1959