Eradication of tumor cells after injection into immunized hosts compared with the eradication of tumor cells after transfer of immune peritoneal exudates into tumor-bearing recipients.

DBA/2 mice were immunized against the syngeneic SL2 lymphoma by two or five injections with irradiated lymphoma cells given IP or SC, respectively. The antitumor efficacy induced in immunized mice was tested by (a) IP injection of the immunized mice with nonirradiated tumor cells and (b) transfer of the total 'immune' peritoneal exudate, the cellular fraction only, or the cell-free fraction only, IP into tumor-bearing recipients, or (c) tumor neutralization tests (Winn assay). It was shown that immunized mice were able to reject 5 X 10(7) SL2 tumor cells (8 of 14 mice survived greater than 100 days), while in most transfer experiments 2 X 10(5) SL2 cells could be eradicated. In the tumor neutralization experiments a number of 10(6) SL2 cells were eradicated. When the immune exudates were given before the inoculations of SL2 tumor cells the number of survivors increased significantly. Further, it was shown that the cellular fraction is the major contributor to the antitumor effect in the transfer experiments, since there was no significant difference in tumor eradication after injection of a complete immune exudate and after injection of the isolated cellular fraction. Injection of the noncellular fraction had no measurable antitumor effect. An increase in the number of injections with total peritoneal exudates from immunized mice did not result in an increase in tumor eradication in the tumor-bearing recipients. Extra stimulation (IP) of immunized mice with 10(4) nonirradiated cells 6 days after the last immunization resulted in an increase of the antitumor efficacy of these peritoneal exudates of these mice when collected 4-24 h after this stimulation. Extra stimulation with 10(6) irradiated cells had no measurable effect.