Characterization of the presumptive sarcoma cells in primary MSV tumors

Presumptive sarcoma cells have been isolated from primary MSV tumors induced in normal, immunosuppressed (ALG) and athymic nude mice. These cells were atypical in appearance, induced tumors in secondary hosts and expressed the viral antigens gp70, p30 and p12. In vitro growth characteristics of the MSV cells were tested in a variety of assays defining cell transformation. None of these indicated that the virus-positive cells were transformed. Sex chromosome marker studies were carried out to determine if secondary tumor arose solely from proliferation of donor cells or through infection of host tissue. Tumors from female irradiated mice induced by injections of tumor cells derived from male mice contained a high proportion of metaphases of non-donor origin, indicating that infection is an important but not the sole mechanism involved in tumor transfer. These data also demonstrated that many of the sarcoma cells are damaged as a result of infection as shown by the presence of chromosome breaks and aneuploid metaphases. Histologic sections of both regressor and progressor tumors showed that the virus-positive cells were scattered as single cells surrounded by inflammatory cells, rather than as masses of dividing virus-positive cells found in the MSV-induced transplanted tumor. Collectively, these data support the contention that the MSV tumor is the manifestation of a response to a highly noxious virus infection rather than a tumor of dividing, transformed malignant cells.