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A Survey of the Growth Characteristics of and the Host Reactions to One Hundred C3H/He Mammary Carcinomas¹

Department of Cancer Therapy Development, Pondville Hospital, Walpole, Massachusetts 02081

The ability of mouse mammary carcinomas to induce transplantation resistance in syngeneic hosts has been tested by the surgery-challenge procedure. The characteristic has been determined for 100 different primary mammary carcinomas derived from 26 breeding female C3H/He mice and has been related to the time of appearance, to the s.c. growth rate, to the s.c. transplantability of all of the tumors, and to the i.v. transplantability (pulmonary growth) and pulmonary growth rate of 50 of the tumors.

Fifty-seven % of the tumors, when used for presensitization, produced a degree of transplantation resistance in treated hosts, and the resistance was, where tested, individually specific. Twenty-one % of the tumors left little or no effect, after surgical removal, on the growth of subsequent implants. Twenty-two % produced a degree of promotion of the growth of challenge implants. The growth promotion was, where tested, not individually specific.

The tumor characteristics of immunogenicity, relative neutrality, and growth promotion were found to be unrelated to the following: (a) the age of the original host at time of appearance of the primary tumor; (b) the growth rate of the tumor; and (c) the s.c. transplantability in unsensitized hosts. The ability to grow in the lungs after i.v. implantation occurred most frequently among immunogenic tumors.

Most individual primary tumors were stable in repeated transplantations with respect to all characteristics tested. Three tumors lost immunosensitivity, and two tumors gained immunogenicity and/or immunosensitivity in the course of repeated passages in untreated syngeneic hosts. When these tumors were retested from primary tumors stored in liquid N₂, the same changes recurred in the same or nearly the same transplant generation.

¹ Supported by Grant CA-15960, awarded by the National Cancer Institute, Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The work was started at the Massachusetts General Hospital and completed at the Pondville Hospital.

Received 8/15/77. Accepted 11/ 4/77.