Immunization with idiotypic immunoglobulin protects against development of B lymphocytic leukemia, but emerging tumor cells can evade antibody attack by modulation.
- 1 February 1983
- journal article
- research article
- Published by The American Association of Immunologists in The Journal of Immunology
- Vol. 130 (2), 970-973
- https://doi.org/10.4049/jimmunol.130.2.970
Abstract
Immunization of strain 2 guinea pigs with idiotypic IgM obtained from serum of animals in the terminal phase of the L2C leukemia produced high levels of circulating anti-idiotypic antibody that was cytotoxic for the tumor cells in the presence of syngeneic C. Such animals showed good protection against injected tumor cells, but after a long delay, leukemia did develop. As tumor cells appeared in the blood, anti-idiotype was consumed, but the cells displayed little or no surface Ig and could not be killed in vitro by anti-idiotype and C. However, as serum antibody levels fell, the cells displayed increasing amounts of surface IgM lambda of the same idiotype and regained their susceptibility to the antibody and C in vitro. It appears, therefore, that the ability of tumor cells to modulate their target idiotype can present a considerable problem for antibody-mediated attack.This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: