The role of macrophages in the cytotoxic killing of tumour cells in vitro. I. Primary immunization of lymphocytes in vitro for target cell killing and the mechanism of lymphocyte-macrophage cooperation.

Lymph node and spleen cells from normal mice were cultured for 3 days with polyoma virus-induced tumour, Ehrlich's ascites tumour or leukaemia L 1210 cells. This resulted in immunization of the lymphocytes, which were then transferred to irradiated target cells labelled with Cr. Normal, i.e. non-immune thioglycollate-stimulated peritoneal macrophages were also added to some tubes. Non-immune macrophages mixed with immunized lymphocytes showed a significantly increased ability to destroy tumour cells as compared with macrophages in the absence of immunized lymphocytes. The immunized lymphocytes were almost entirely inactive alone. When the number of macrophages was kept constant the cytotoxicity was dependent on the number of viable immunized lymphocytes placed on the target cells. Immunized lymphocytes, in the presence of macrophages, only exhibited strong killing of the target cells against which they had been immunized; some lysis of bystander' cells was, however, seen provided specific target cells were present. Macrophage monolayers exposed to immunized lymphocytes upon contact with specific antigen became armed' and showed a significant cytotoxicity for specific target cells. When immunized lymphocytes and normal macrophages were treated with actinomycin D and puromycin, cytotoxicity was inhibited in the immunized lymphocytes but not in the macrophages. The possible mechanism of normal macrophage cooperation with immunized lymphocytes in the cytotoxic killing reaction is discussed. Results presented in this paper favour the view that immunologically specific cytophilic factor (presumptive cytophilic antibody) is involved in the macrophage-mediated cytotoxicity in the system studied.