Detection of tumorigenic cells in Friend virus-infected mice: an in vivo methodological investigation.

Tumor formation by subcutaneous transplants of spleens from erythroleukemic mice infected with Friend virus complex inducing polycythemia (FLV-P) is successful only during the late phase of the disease. To determine whether this observation is due to the absence of tumorigenic cells in the early phase of such leukemia or to the inability of standard procedures to detect these cells, the sensitivities of different routes of inoculation in sublethally irradiated or unirradiated syngeneic recipients were examined. The omentum of the sublethally irradiated mouse was found to be a suitable site for the homing and proliferation of recently isolated tumorigenic cells from FLV-P-infected mice, since it proved 1,000 times more sensitive than the usual subcutaneous sites in unirradiated mice. When this sensitive graft in the omentum was applied to detection of tumorigenic cells in the spleens of FLV-P-infected mice, the mean detection time was 20 days after virus infection, compared to 36 days with the usual subcutaneous graft method.