Purification and characterization of an immunosuppressive factor from ovarian cancer ascites fluid

A nonspecific immunosuppressive factor present in malignant (ovarian carcinoma) ascites fluid has been purified by acid extraction from a high molecular weight (greater than 20000) complex followed by preparative isoelectric focusing on Bio-lyte media. It is an acidic protein (pI = 3.6) of mol. wt. 50000 to 52000 as estimated by gel filtration and composed of subunits of 25000 to 26000 estimated by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, under reducing conditions. It inhibits the phytohemagglutinin-dependent mitogenic response of normal peripheral blood lymphocytes by 50% at 2 microgram/ml concentrations in vitro and suppresses 80% of the plaque-forming cell response to sheep erythrocytes at 100 microgram per mouse in vivo. Its chemical identity with any of the known plasma proteins has not been established. Its failure to stain with periodic acid Schiff's reagent indicates its minimal content of carbohydrates. It is susceptible to tryptic and pronase digestion but insensitive to deoxyribonuclease and ribonuclease digestion. A smaller suppressive factor identified in the same fluid appears to be a lymphotoxin; it differs from the acid-extracted nonspecific suppressive factor in its lack of susceptibility to trypsin.