Immunologic basis of resistance to RL male 1 induced by immunoselected Thy-1.2 negative variants

Variant cell lines that have lost the Thy-1 antigen have a reduced capacity to induce tumors in syngeneic recipients when compared to Thy-1 positive clones. The negative variants are cloned, cultured cells obtained from the Thy-1.2(theta) positive BALB/c lymphoma RL male 1 in a single-step immunoselection procedure. The reduction appears to be related to an alteration in the host response to the tumor, since both the variant and parental cells induce tumors equally well in irradiated mice. Males are much more susceptible to the inoculated tumor cells, suggesting that the relevant response is restricted to females. A majority of female animals that survive challenge with the variant do not allow growth of the parental tumor when they are injected with a quantity of cells that is uniformly fatal in untreated recipients. Most of the surviving females have an antibody in their sera that is cytotoxic for the variant, its parent, and normal thymocytes. None of the few surviving males had significant titers of the antibody. Cell-mediated immunity directed toward the positive and negative tumor cells was demonstrable in half the surviving animals of both sexes.