Immunoglobulin production by lymphosarcomas induced by Abelson virus in mice

A brief review of the origin and tumor-inducing properties of Abelson murine leukemia virus is given. The most common neoplasm induced by this virus in vivo is a nonthymic lymphocytic tumor of bone marrow and lymph node origin. Two morphologic types of lymphosarcomas are the undifferentiated lymphosarcoma (LS) and the plasmacytic lymphosarcoma (PL). With the electron microscope, both tumor cell types may be mixed and contain undifferentiated cells or cells with a moderate amount of rough endoplasmic reticulum and polysomes. PL tumors are composed predominantly of the latter. In biosynthetic studies, PL tumors produce more immunoglobulin (Ig) than LS and more of the Ig-heavy chain, which is thought to be the murine counterpart of IgD. PL-cells sensitized with rabbit antisera to mouse kappa chains formed rosettes with formalinized protein-A producing Staphylococcus aureus Cowan I strain. The rabbit antisera were specific for kappa chains by absorption. The failure of lymphosarcoma cells to secrete Ig indicates their differentiation is blocked by the transformation process. Lymphosarcoma cells appear then to be derived from B-lymphocytes.