Antigen-specific B cell tumors of mice

The topics covered in this review include: the origin and availability of murine B cell lymphomas bearing immunoglobulins of known antigen reactivity; their etiology and the role of antigen in lymphomagenesis; the extent to which such tumors are true analogs of normal B cells; and the knowledge of B cell differentiation which has been derived from the study of these cells. There is little or no evidence that B lymphomas with preselected antigen specificity can be induced at will. However, there is evidence that genetic factors influencing idiotype specific regulation can predispose particular subsets of B cells to neoplastic transformation, and thereby indirectly influence the antigen specificity of the resultant lymphomas. The bulk of evidence suggests that, except for growth control characteristics, recently derived B cell lymphomas retain many of the features of normal lymphocytes. Thus, mechanisms elucidated by study of lymphomas are probably reflective of normal B cell biology.