Specific tumoricidal activity of cytotoxic macrophages and cytotoxic lymphocytes.

The antitumor potency and specificity of syngeneic immune peritoneal exudate cells were tested. Groups of DBA/2 mice were immunized against syngeneic SL2 tumor cells. Then 6 days after the last immunization the antitumor potency, and the specificity of the immunization reaction was tested by injecting groups of the immunized mice with 10(3) to 5 X 10(7) DBA/2 derived L1210, L5178Y, P815 or SL2 tumor cells, and injecting immune peritoneal exudate cells into DBA/2 mice which had been injected 2 h earlier i.p. with 2 X 10(4) or 2 X 10(5) L1210, L5178Y, P815, or SL2 cells. Furthermore the tumor specific cytotoxicity in vitro of isolated immune (vs SL2) peritoneal macrophages was tested against L1210, L5178Y, P815, and SL2 cells. The "reciprocal" experiments (previous immunization against L1210, L5178Y, or P815 cells and 'challenge' with SL2) were also done. Finally, we tested the tumor-specific cytotoxicity of isolated immune peritoneal T-lymphocytes. It was shown that the rejection of tumor cells in previously immunized mice, the antitumor efficacy of the transferred immune peritoneal exudate cells and the in vitro cytotoxicity of purified immune peritoneal macrophages and lymphocytes, were tumor-specific reactions. That is only between the SL2 and L5178Y tumors were cross-reactions observed. However, this cross-reaction was not found at the level of cytotoxic T-cells. This suggests that cytotoxic T-cells and cytotoxic macrophages probably have different mechanisms of recognition of the specific tumor target cells. Treatment of macrophage monolayers, prepared from macrophages of immunized mice, with monoclonal anti-Thy-1 antibodies plus complement caused no decrease in cytotoxicity. This shows that macrophages can really express specific cytotoxicity. Tumoricidal macrophages probably obtain their tumor specificity through the activities of tumor-specific factors produced by sensitized T-cells.