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The Surface Antigenicity of Serially Transplantable Malignant Human Lymphoid Cells Derived from Subjects with Infectious Mononucleosis, Hodgkin's Disease, Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia, or Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia¹

Children's Cancer Research Foundation and the Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Human lymphoid cells can be maintained as serially transplantable malignant tumors in rabbit anti-hamster thymocyte serum-immunosuppressed neonatal Syrian hamsters, and these tumors can be assigned to either of two categories on the basis of their biological behavior in serial transplantation. Some (Category A) have exhibited the manifestations of acute leukemia but cannot be demonstrated to synthesize immunoglobulins; these have been isolated solely from children with active acute lymphoblastic leukemia secondary to lymphosarcoma. The remainder (Category B) have been isolated from a wide diversity of malignant and nonmalignant states and, in the hamster, these secrete immunoglobulin and provide no convincing evidence of their capacity to progress to acute leukemia.

It can be demonstrated, by the techniques of quantitative absorption and indirect immunofluorescence, that the Category B cell surface is characterized by the presence of common antigen(s) which is probably not surface immunoglobulin and which is restricted at or absent from the cell surface of the Category A acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells and from that of normal peripheral blood leukocytes as well. Some of the implications of these findings for the study of cell populations in the lymphoproliferative disorders are discussed.

¹ These studies were supported in part by Research Grants C-6516 from the National Cancer Institute and FR-05526 from the Division of Research Facilities and Resources, NIH.

² Karin Grunebaum Cancer Research Foundation Fellow on leave from Harvard Medical School 3rd year. Present address: Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass.

³ To whom reprint requests should be addressed.

Received 7/27/73. Accepted 10/29/73.