Simultaneous development of humoral and cellular tumor-specific immunity against L1210 mouse leukemia.

We have recently described that a variant of L1210 leukemia cell (L1210/LN-1) originally fused with Lesch-Nyhan fibroblast is highly immunogenic for inducing tumor-specific transplantation immunity in (BALB/cxDBA/2)F1 mice. This finding has clearly been confirmed in the present study by in-vitro cell-mediated cytotoxicity assay. Direct cytotoxic tests and competitive inhibition tests using tumor cells such as P388, LS-1 and L5178Y as target or inhibitor cells showed that the cell-mediated immunity is specific to L1210 leukemia. In the process of this study, we found that the CD2F1 mice hyperimmune to L1210 leukemia cells developed co-existing humoral anti-L1210 leukemia immunity. In an in vitro complement-dependent cytotoxicity test and absorption test, antisera from hyperimmune mice reacted specifically to L1210 leukemia cells, but not other tumor cells such as P388, L5178Y, LS-1, DB27C and BW5147 or normal cells from various tissues of DBA/2, BALB/c and AKR mice. In an in vitro cytotoxicity blocking test, the cytotoxic antisera specifically reactive to L1210 cells totally failed to inhibit lysis of L1210 cells by cytotoxic cells, suggesting that antigens recognized by cell-mediated cytotoxicity assays are not identical to serologically defined tumor-cell surface antigens.