Immunization of the A/Jax Mouse with Irradiated Cells of its Indigenous Tumour, Sarcoma I

Abstract

ONE of the transplantable tumours widely used in investigations of tumour immunology is Sarcoma I (SaI), a tumour that originated in 1947 in a mouse of the Strong A strain that had been treated with dibenzanthracene¹. We, as well as others, have maintained the tumour by transplantation in mice of the A/Jax strain, a sub-line of the Strong A strain, and utilize animals of this strain as the susceptible host in various experiments. Since any immunological response, even though it may be insufficient to cause rejection of the tumour, may influence the results of experiments with this tumour-host system, it appeared desirable to determine whether an immunological response to SaI occurs in the A/Jax mouse. From work of others it appeared that the possibility of an antigenic disparity between the tumour and the A/Jax mouse is favoured by the likelihood of genetic change in the mouse or the tumour during the prolonged period of transplantation and by the fact that the tumour was induced by dibenzanthracene^2,3.