Nude mouse resists hepatic metastasis of the allogeneic tumor, colon-26.

The ability of the host-immune defense mechanism of nude mice and their immunocompetent littermates to prevent liver metastases from the murine colon carcinoma, colon-26, was assessed. Give thousand tumor cells suspended in 0.05 ml of Hank's balanced salt solution were inoculated into the spleens of BALB/c nu/+ and BALB/c nu/nu mice. On the 21st day after inoculation, all the mice were sacrificed, and the liver metastases counted and the livers weighed. All the BALB/c nu/+ mice were found to have developed hepatic metastases with a mean of 10 nodules, whereas no hepatic metastases were observed in any of the 10 BALB/c nude mice. On the other hand, 4 of 6 nude mice developed hepatic metastases after treatment with anti-asialo GM1 antibody. These results indicate that the BALB/c nude mouse has an excellent host-immune defense mechanism for preventing liver metastasis, with NK cells in the liver and/or blood circulation perhaps playing an important role.