Afferent and efferent specificity in the induction and elicitation of parental cross-protective immunity by an immunogenic murine tumor variant: associative recognition of a unique tumor-specific antigen on somatic cell hybrids.

Highly immunogenic (Imm+) murine tumor cell variants can engender a strong tumor-specific, cross-protective immune response against challenge with the weakly immunogenic parental tumor cell line. We examined the afferent induction and efferent specificity of the parental cross-protective immunity observed following immunization with the Imm+ variant of the murine fibrosarcoma MCA-F, designated MCA-FM1. Specificity of the afferent and efferent responses against the parental tumor in mice immunized with the MCA-FM1 variant were monitored by challenge with the tumor MCA-D, which expresses a tumor-specific antigen that is immunologically distinct from but biochemically related to the MCA-F antigen. We observed that mixture of MCA-D and MCA-FM1 cells at immunization failed to elicit a strong tumor rejection response against challenge with MCA-D. Challenge of MCA-FM1-immune mice with a mixture of MCA-FM1 and MCA-D cells resulted in a significant bystander effect at the site of Imm+ rejection, with reduced growth of the MCA-D tumor. To test the hypothesis that the induction of parental cross-protective immunity required the associative recognition of both the Imm+ neoantigen and the parental tumor antigen on the same cell, we constructed somatic cell hybrids of MCA-D with either MCA-F or MCA-FM1. Surprisingly, the hybrids did not express either parental tumor-specific antigen present on the fusion partners but displayed a unique antigenic specificity designated F/D. Expression of the F/D antigen by both the immunogenic and nonimmunogenic hybrid cell lines demonstrated that the tumor-specific F/D antigen was the focus of the cross-protective immunity. These results demonstrate that associative recognition of the tumor-specific parental antigen with the strongly immunogenic neoantigen coexpressed on the surface of the Imm+ variant is responsible for the afferent induction and efferent elicitation of anti-parental cross-protective immunity. Furthermore, this study is the first to report that the fusion of two syngeneic tumor cell lines reproducibly results in a new tumor antigen specificity at the expense of the original parental specificities.

Differential extraction of tumor-specific antigens from two ultraviolet light-induced murine fibrosarcomas with the use of 1-butanol.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the immunobiological characteristics of the tumor-specific cell surface antigen expressed by the UV-induced murine fibrosarcoma, UV-2240. UV-2240 is classified as a regressor UV tumor because it is immunologically rejected by normal syngeneic mice but grows in immunocompromised or UV-irradiated hosts. The strong tumor-specific rejection antigen expressed by UV-2240 was found on the plasma membrane, and unlike the previously characterized antigen of UV-1591, the UV-2240 antigen was removed by using the noncytolytic butanol extraction technique. The tumor antigen activity in butanol extracts was resistant to digestion by endoglycosidase F and alpha-mannosidase, but was destroyed by pronase. In addition, the immunoprotective activity in extracts of UV-2240 was thermostable. These data demonstrate that the UV-2240-specific tumor antigen possesses physicochemical properties distinct from those of its well-characterized counterpart UV-1591.

Immunogenic variants of a murine fibrosarcoma induced by mutagenesis: requirement of viable cells for antigen-specific cross-protection.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the immunological and biological consequences of neoantigen expression by immunogenic tumor variants (Imm+) following in vitro treatment with the mutagen 1-methyl-3-nitro-1-nitrosoguanidine. The weakly immunogenic murine fibrosarcoma MCA-F was used because we have previously characterized the tumor-specific transplantation antigen expressed by this tumor. Immunogenic variant clones were obtained at high frequency following four treatments with 1-methyl-3-nitro-1-nitrosoguanidine. The immunogenicity of the Imm+ clones was confirmed by their progressive growth in immunosuppressed C3H/HeN mice and their lack of growth in normal syngeneic (C3H/HeN mice. The immune response engendered in immunocompetent mice after a single immunization with viable Imm+ cells was tumor specific, completely protecting hosts against challenge with 10,000-fold the minimum tumorigenic dose of parental MCA-F cells, but not against 10 minimum tumorigenic doses of the non-cross-reactive tumor MCA-D. The strong cross-protection elicited by Imm+ neoantigens against the parental tumor-specific transplantation antigen was not observed when soluble extracts or isolated plasma membranes of Imm+ cells were used for immunization. Immunogenic variant cells inactivated using either mitomycin C or gamma-irradiation also demonstrated a significantly diminished immunoprotective activity against challenge with the parent tumor. However, inactivated Imm+ cells and their isolated plasma membranes still expressed sufficient neoantigen to completely protect mice against homotypic Imm+, but not parental challenge. These results suggest that (a) the MCA-F Imm+ variants express neoantigens capable of engendering a strong specific as well as cross-protective immunity against challenge with either the parent or the variant and (b) the associative recognition of neoantigen and TSTA that results in strong cross-protection against challenge with the parent tumor requires immunization with viable Imm+ cells for full expression of the immunogenic phenotype.