Correlation of growth of tumours in NC‐cell‐depleted mice with NC‐ and NK‐cell‐mediated lysis in vitro

Abstract

The anti-tumour surveillance activity of natural cytotoxic (NC) cells was studied in vivo using the transplantable tumours WEHI-164 fibrosarcoma, MPC-II plasmacytoma, WEHI-7 T-lymphoma, B16 melanoma and EL-4 thymoma in syngeneic and semi-allogeneic mice. Experimentally, mice were treated with the anti-NC-I.I monoclonal antibody (MAb) IC4 to abrogate splenic NC activity. This was followed by s.c. inoculation of MTD100 doses of the tumours. Comparison of the diameters of the tumours in the anti-NC-I.I-treated mice with control mice using non-parametric statistics showed significantly faster growth of WEHI-164 (p less than 0.01), MPC-II (p less than 0.05) and WEHI-7 (p less than 0.05) when the mean tumour diameters were less than 15 mm in the anti-NC-I.I-treated mice. Significantly faster growth was also observed in anti-NC-I.I-treated mice with the B16 tumour (p less than 0.05), but at a later stage of growth, when the tumour diameter was greater than 15 mm. In vitro, WEHI-164, MPC-II and WEHI-7 were shown to be predominantly sensitive to lysis by mouse splenic NC cells, while B16 was predominantly lysed by splenic natural-killer (NK) cells. Anti-NC-I.I treatment of mice did not affect the growth of EL-4 in vivo and in vitro experiments with anti-NK-I.I and anti-NC-I.I MAb indicated that this tumour was lysed by sub-sets of NK and NC cells distinct from those which lysed the other tumours. We conclude that, in mice at least, NC cells have an in vivo role in controlling the growth of some transplantable tumours, and this correlates with the in vitro NC cell lysis of these same tumours.

The Difference of the Impacts of Surgical Approaches on Cellular Immunity in Patients with Uterine Malignancies: A Comparative Study of Laparoscopy and Laparotomy Surgery

“…A study by Ferrin et al [23] reported that the numbers of NK cells in patients with tumors were lower than those in healthy people, resulting from the consumption of tumor cells and precursors of NK cells that did not differentiate to maturity. Others have suggested that NK cells could not play the role of immunosurveillance and kill tumor cells because the activity of NK cells in cancer patients was depressed [24]. An increased number of cells may not indicate an intensification of immunity.…”

LY-6C+ natural T (NT) cells mediate immune surveillance against NK-sensitive and NK-resistant transplantable tumours in certain strains of mice

“…When this tumour was transplanted into C57BLi6 mice pre-treated with 2B6-F2, a significant increase in the B16 growth rate was observed. Smart et al (1992) have previously reported that lysis of B16 in vitro was almost completely mediated by NK-1.1+ cells. Evidence for the involvement of NK-1.1+ cells in immunosurveillance against B16 local tumour growth and metastasis in vivo has been provided by studies performed in normal mice depleted of NK-1.1+ cells with MAb PK136 (Seaman et aL, 1987).…”

“…We have shown that C57BL/6 splenic NK-1.1+ cells kill the NK-sensitive tumour cell lines YAC-1 and B16 melanoma in 18-hr 51Cr-release assays (Smart et al, 1992). NK-1.1+ cells have also been shown to mediate immune surveillance against local growth and metastasis of the B16 melanoma in vivo (Seaman et al, 1987).…”

“…NK-1.1+ cells have also been shown to mediate immune surveillance against local growth and metastasis of the B16 melanoma in vivo (Seaman et al, 1987). In contrast, C57BL/6 NK-1.1+ spleen cells mediate little or no lysis of the WEHI-164 M1/16 fibrosarcoma and WEHI-7 T lymphoma (Smart et al, 1992;Hackett et al, 1986a) and are thus considered to be NK-resistant targets.…”

“…Direct evidence for the role of NK-1.1+ and NC-1.1+ cells in tumour immunosurveillance has been provided by the accelerated growth of certain transplantable tumours in mice depleted of these cells (Seaman et al, 1987;Smart et al, 1992). A subset of NK-1.1+ cells which express the T-cell receptor TCRaP, defined as natural T (NT) cells (Bix and Locksley, 1995), has also been shown to mediate NCMC in vitro against Fas+ thymocytes and Fas+ T lymphomas in an 18-hr 51Cr-release assay (Arase et al, 1994).…”