Spontaneous and induced appearance of murine leukemia virus antigen containing cells in organ cultures of embryonic mouse thymus.

The potential of embryonic thymus organ cultures for studies on relations of endogenous MuLV, lymphoid cells and thymic microenvironment to lymphoma development were evaluated. Four main findings are reported. First, thymuses of 14-day-old CBA and AKR embryos could be maintained in organ cultures for at least 9 weeks with sustained production of lymphocytes. Lymphopoiesis in CBA and AKR thymuses were not grossly different. Secondly, an indirect immunofluorescence (IF) technique demonstrated spontaneous appearance of MuLV-antigen-containing cells in AKR, but not in CBA thymuses. Such spontaneous MuLV expression first occurred after 16 days of organ culture, thereafter infrequently and at random in individual thymus cultures. Thirdly, incubation of AKR and CBA thymuses in lymphoma extract containing AKR-type MuLV at initiation of organ cultures induced MuLV-antigen-containing cells. These were first detected after 7-14 days in culture, somewhat earlier and initially more frequently in AKR than in CBA thymuses. In the former, induction was accompanied by a clear reduction in the number of lymphocytes per thymus. Fourthly, iododeoxyuridine (IdUrd) treatment of AKR thymuses on cultute day 0, 3 or 7 decreased the number of lymphocytes per thymus and induced appearance of MuLV-antigen containing cells, assayed 8-20 days later. The IdUrd effect was most marked on day 0, and decreased sucessively on days 3 and 7. IdUrd had a much slighter effect on CBA thymuses, causing a lower reduction in cell numbers and inducing few MuLV-antigen cells. These main results clearly demonstrate the potential usefulness of the organ culture system for studied on leukemogenesis. It may be directly applied to answer several questions raised by detailed findings in our study.