Abstract
Background: The brain, despite the blood-brain barrier, does not escape to the highly variable host rejection response mediated by a very strong and complex immune reaction when rat glioma cells are transplanted into the adult animal.
Methods:Crosses were performed among parents that are able or enable to reject a well-known brain tumor cell line (C6). Newborn animals were also challenged with rat glioma cells both in the brain and the side flanks.
Results: The percentage of susceptibility or resistance to develop a lethal glioma can be estimated knowing the parental phenotypes. When both parents had rejected an induced tumor, 63% of the progeny will also reject it. Similarly, if both parents died as a consequence of the tumor, 70% of the progeny would also be unable to reject the challenge of glioma C6 cells. Newborn animals do not have a mature immune system and they tolerate transplanted cells much better than adults. We found no rejection to glioma C6, at both brain and side flank sites, in 1-day-old neonatal Wistar rats. Tumors were beginning to be eliminated if the cells are inoculated at day 3 from birth on the flanks, and at 1week from birth on the brain.
Conclusions: There is a genetic component conferring susceptibility or resistance to the lethal effect of tumor development and progression depending on the parental phenotype of the adult rats. Neonatal rats represent a much more reliable model than adults to study experimental therapies against gliomas.
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Gonzalez-Martin, A., Muñoz-Espín, D., Alonso, A.M. et al. Parent Phenotype and Age Dependence, on Rat Glioma Tumor Rejection. J Neurooncol 70, 29–34 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NEON.0000040838.40115.f5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NEON.0000040838.40115.f5