Cellular immune responses to methylcholanthrene-induced fibrosarcoma in BALB/c mice.

Several in vitro parameters of cellular immunity were examined in BALB/c mice with an experimentally induced fibrosarcoma tumor. The results of capillary migration of spleen cells in high tumor cell dose inoculated mice show appearance of cellular immune response in the early stages of the tumor growth. As the tumor progresses, the cellular response declines and rapidly disappears, culminating in stimulation values near the time of the death of these mice. The blastogenic studies also show early cellular recognition of tumor antigen by mouse spleen cells and whole blood (Z24 h). After the 2nd day following tumor injection, no blast transformation is noted. However, the results obtained with a lower inoculating tumor cell dose demonstrate an initial cellular recognition on the 7th day. This response gradually disappears by the 19th day and remains negative up to the time of the death of these mice. This cellular immunity was confirmed by the cytotoxic experiments showing that the primary cells responsible for this cellular reactivity were the immune cells. An interesting finding was the presence of a factor(s) capable of blocking the cytotoxic effect. The nature and mechanism of this blocking factor(s) is now under investigation.