Immunosuppression in vitro induced by leukemia virus-infected splenocytes (38544)

Studies of cloned Friend erythroleukemia tumor cells. Modulation of the tumor-specific cytologic T lymphocyte response by infectious Friend virus production in vitro

The HFL/b tumor cell line, induced by Friend erythroleukemia virus in BALB.B mice, was used to study the relation between virus production or nonproduction and the antigens recognized by Friend virus-specific cytolytic T lymphocytes (CTL). Analysis of clones and subclones of these tumor cells revealed a high degree of heterogeneity with respect to the production and release into culture fluids of infectious Friend virus in vitro, ranging from high levels to low or undetectable levels of virus production. Although no major differences could be detected among the antibody-defined serotypes of the various clones, the susceptibility of cells of individual HFL/b clones to attack by Friend virus-specific CTL varied widely, and those clones which produced large amounts of infectious virus provided the most sensitive target cells. It was also apparent that production of infectious Friend virus was inhibitory to CTL generation in syngeneic mixed leukocyte-tumor cell cultures. Friend erythroleukemia virus-producing cells thus appeared to interact in a complex manner with the host CTL response by modulating their production of infectious Friend virus.

Reversal of immunosuppression induced by murine leukemia viruses

BALB/c mice infected with Rowson-Parr virus, a lymphatic leukemia virus isolated from the Friend complex, undergo a rapid depression of antibody response. Spleen cells from these mice in culture show a similar deficit in the response to stimulation with sheep red cells and inhibit the reactivity of normal splenocytes. In an attempt to reverse this immunosuppression, near normal responses were obtained in vitro from infected splenocytes by increasing antigen dose, by adding E. coli lipopolysaccharide, or, more effectively, by cocultivating with small numbers of unfractionated or T cell-depleted peritoneal exudate cells (PC), whereas other manipulations proved ineffective. PC did not prevent the inhibition of normal splenocytes by infected spleen cells, but exhibited substantial restorative activity in vivo. In similar experiments, the immunosuppression exerted by the entire Friend complex could be reversed by PC in vitro but not in vivo. These results indicate that a functional deficit of macrophages may be partially responsible for the immunological impairment induced by leukemia viruses and suggest rational approaches to evaluate the relevance of this impairment to oncogenesis.