Studies on the level of natural antibodies reactive with various tumor cells during urethane carcinogenesis in BALB/c mice.

Serum from young normal BALB/c mice was found to contain IgM antibodies able to mediate complement-dependent lysis of certain syngeneic or allogeneic tumor target cells. The titer of such naturally occurring antitumor antibodies ( NATA ) was found to increase with aging. A longitudinal serological study comparing the cytotoxicity potential of NATA from normal and from urethan-treated BALB/c mice was performed. It was found that urethan-treated mice that did not develop primary lung-adenomas within the duration of the experiment had significantly lower NATA titers, against one out of 4 target cells assayed, than urethan-treated animals that developed lung adenomas. This difference was evident in two independent experiments. The results suggested that the lower NATA activity of the urethan-treated mice that did not develop tumors existed even before exposure to the carcinogenic insult. This raises the possibility that certain populations could be segregated according to their natural antibody profile into those individuals which will develop primary tumors within a certain period if exposed to a subthreshold amount of carcinogen, and those which will not.