BCG treatment of human tumour xenografts in athymic nude mice

Abstract

Summary.-Xenografts of 3 human malignant cell lines in congenitally athymic nude mice have been examined for susceptibility to BCG. Growth of all 3 tumours, a bladder carcinoma, a melanoma and a colon carcinoma, was suppressed when cells were injected in admixture with BCG. Distant injection of BCG was ineffective. Mice with progressive growths had no detectable anti-human antibody, and rejection of cells and BCG failed to confer protection against subsequent tumour challenge. These studies indicate that human malignant cells are susceptible to local BCGactivated host responses, and that athymic mouse xenografts may be a useful model for assessing the response of human tumours to such agents.

Natural Resistance to Xenografts of Human Malignant Melanoma Cell Lines in Nude Mice

“…2). This result is in agreement with previ ous observations obtained with other tumor types [7,8]. Conversely, admixture of BCG to tumor cell inoculum abrogated the ability of HTCL to grow in nude mice ( fig.…”

“…Conversely, admixture of BCG to tumor cell inoculum abrogated the ability of HTCL to grow in nude mice ( fig. 3 A) as pre viously observed [8]. The fact that ability of HMCL to grow in nude mice could be manipulated by a negative and a positive stim ulation of natural immunity of recipients strengthened the view that an active tumor re jection may operate in nude mice despite their T cell deficiency.…”

Serological aspects of rat tumour xenograft growth in athymic nude mice

“…However, antibody against membrane-associated EBV virus was not demonstrable, and the precise antigenic components of the human cells in the athymic mice were unresolved. Similar studies with mice bearing xenografts of the human bladder carcinoma line T24 failed to detect antibody by the membrane-immunofluorescence test (Pimm & Baldwin, 1978).…”

“…IMMUNOSUPPRESSED and congenitally athymic (nude) mice are becoming widely used to study the growth of malignant xenografts, particularly human tumours, and to assess their responses to chemotherapy (Houghton et al, 1977;Povlsen & Jacobsen, 1975;Kopper & Steel, 1975;Lamerton & Steel, 1975;Sonis et al, 1977), radiotherapy (Davy et al, 1977) and immunotherapy (Pimm & Baldwin, 1978) and to examine their growth kinetics (Pickard et al, 1975;Houghton & Taylor, 1978a;Lamerton & Steel, 1975), karyotypes (Reeves & Houghton, 1978) and metabolism (Houghton & Taylor, 1978b).…”