A survey of the growth characteristics of and the host reactions to one hundred C3H/He mammary carcinomas
Vaage, J.
Cancer Research 38(2): 331-338
1978
ISSN/ISBN: 0008-5472 PMID: 620404 Document Number: 130807
The ability of mouse mammary carcinomas to induce transplantation resistance in syngeneic hosts was tested by the surgery-challenge procedure. The characteristic was determined for 100 primary mammary carcinomas derived from 26 breeding female C3H/He mice and was related to the time of appearance, subcutaneous growth rate, s.c. transplantability of all tumors and i.v. transplantability (pulmonary growth) and pulmonary growth rate of 50 tumors. Fifty-seven percent of the tumors, when used for presensitization, produced a degree of transplantation resistance in treated hosts, and the resistance was, where tested, individually specific. Twenty-one percent of the tumors left little or no effect, after surgical removal on the growth of subsequent implants. Twenty-two percent produced a degree of promotion of the growth of challenge implants. The growth promotion was, where tested, not individually specific. The tumor characteristics of immunogenicity, relative neutrality and growth promotion were unrelated to the following: age of the original host at time of appearance of the primary tumor; growth rate of the tumor and s.c. transplantability in unsensitized hosts. The ability to grow in the lungs after i.v. implantation occurred most frequently among immunogenic tumors. Most individual primary tumors were stable in repeated transplantations with respect to all characteristics tested. Three tumors lost immunosensitivity, and 2 tumors gained immunogenicity and/or immunosensitivity in the course of repeated passages in untreated syngeneic hosts. When these tumors were retested from primary tumors stored in liquid N2, the same changes recurred in the same or nearly the same transplant generation.