Production of specific macrophage-arming factor precedes cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity in vivo during tumor rejection.

Recently we published a hypothesis on the immunological events occurring during tumor rejection. One of the implications of this hypothesis is that specific macrophage-arming factor (SMAF) is produced early during the initiation of the immune response, whereas the "classical" cell-mediated immune response components, such as cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), are produced later, that is, during the amplifier-effector phase. In this paper we establish the kinetics of the induction of (a) lymphocytes producing SMAF and (b) CTL. Groups of DBA/2 mice were injected i.p. once, twice or three times with irradiated and/or non-irradiated syngeneic SL2 tumor cells, the injections being given at intervals of 10 days. After each of these injections the production of SMAF and the expression of CTL activity were established. The results showed that in the peritoneal cavity SMAF-producing lymphocytes appeared earlier than cytotoxic lymphocytes (CTL). In addition, it was shown (a) that SMAF does not interfere with the in vitro cytotoxicity expressed by CTL and (b) that in addition to CTL memory cells, SMAF-producing memory cells were also induced after injection of syngeneic tumor cells. These data support the hypothesis that SMAF is involved in the early phase of the cellular immune response against tumors, whereas CTL are induced later.