Murine model of immune-mediated rejection of the acute lymphoblastic leukemia 70Z/3.

70Z/3 is a murine pre-B cell leukemia line derived from BDF(1) mice and has been used in the study of signaling pathways in B cells. 70Z/3 cells were initially found to cause widespread disease upon injections in animals. We have isolated 70Z/3 variants divergent in their capacity to lead to morbidity after injections. One variant, 70Z/3-NL, elicits an immune response protecting the animal from tumor growth. Another variant, 70Z/3-L, does not induce an effective immune response and causes morbidity. We demonstrated that both CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells are required for the rejection of 70Z/3-NL cells. Interestingly, the immune response generated against 70Z/3-NL cells was found to protect against a challenge with the lethal variant, 70Z/3-L. This indicates that although both lines can be recognized and killed by the immune system, only 70Z/3-NL is capable of inducing a protective response. Further observations, using subclones isolated from 70Z/3-NL, demonstrated that immune recognition of a portion of the cells was sufficient for protection. Depletion of CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells in animals injected previously with 70Z/3-NL cells showed that T cells, and not Abs, were required for the maintenance of the protection initiated by 70Z/3-NL. We tested the capacity of 70Z/3-NL cells to treat mice challenged with 70Z/3-L. We can delay injections of 70Z/3-NL and still provide protection for the animals. We have a model of immune-mediated rejection which will allow us to dissect the requirements for the initiation of immune responses against an ALL tumor cell line.