Immunomodulation of malnourished mice bearing Dalton's lymphoma

The immunomodulatory effect of a mouse bone-barrow-derived cytokine (BIM), (mol wt<10 kd), was studied in mice bearing Dalton' s lymphoma. It was observed that this factor increased the life-span of mice malnourished with respect to vitamin B-complex and ascorbic acid and infected with Daltons' lymphoma, by 40±4 days when compared to malnourished lymphoma controls while in animals maintained on balanced diet (BDF) the increase in life-span was just over 11±2 days. In cultured bone marrow cells at different time intervals after introduction of lymphoma cells it was shown that introduction of lymphoma cells increased the secretion of BIM. While the lymphoma developed the secretion of BIM diminished much earlier in malnourished than in BDF mice. This observation further strengthens our previous findings that the BIM acted as an immunomodulator much more effectively in malnourished animals than in animals fed a balanced diet, where a feed-back inhibitory effect might be present.