Antibody response of nude (RNU/RNU) and hairy (RNU/+) rats to circulating cell surface components from human pancreatic cancer xenografts.

Homozygous nude rats (rnu/rnu) injected s.c. with 3 X 10(7) human pancreatic cancer cells from the GER cell line developed circulating antibody to GER cell surface, detected in a 125I binding assay against viable GER cells in vitro. Antibody titre rose with progressive xenograft growth. These antibodies showed no selectivity for GER cells when compared with a panel of other human cell lines. Heterozygous nude rats (rnu/+) immunised with serum from their GER xenograft-bearing nude relatives (rnu/rnu) also developed anti-GER cell surface antibodies. These antibodies showed some selectivity for GER and WAD (a second human pancreatic cancer cell line) when compared with other human cancer cells and lymphocytes. These findings show that some human pancreatic cancer cell surface components may persist independently in the circulation of xenograft bearing rnu/rnu rats despite the presence of antibody excess to other surface determinants from the same cells. It is suggested that differences in the relative immune competence of rnu/rnu and rnu/+ rats may offer a biological opportunity for enhancing the recognition of weak antigenic determinants which may have some useful selectivity for different types of human tumour cells.