Human Lung Tumors, Patients’ Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes and Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes Propagated in Scid Mice

Abstract

Studies of the pathogenesis of human tumors and the evaluation of new therapeutic modalities have been limited by the lack of a suitable experimental animal model. Currently very little is known regarding patients’ immune response to their tumors and the consequences of this response to tumor growth. Further, the evaluation of novel tumor therapies has been largely restricted to animal tumor models which may not accurately reflect the efficacy of such therapies for human tumors (Bankert et al. 1989). While athymic homozygous nu/nu mice have been used extensively for the heterotransplantation of human tumors (Fogh and Trempe 1975), their use in evaluating therapies for human cancer is limited by their ability to respond to thymic independent antigens, by the presence of immunoglobulin in their circulation and tissues and by phenotypic and karyotypic changes in the tumor that have been observed during tumor growth in nude mice. We have previously reported (Reddy et al. 1987) that xenografts of human lung tumors can be successfully propagated in the B cell and T cell deficient mouse mutant strain, CB-17 scid (described by Bosma et al. 1983). Several characteristics of the scid mouse make it particularly attractive as a potential model to evaluate new therapeutic approaches to the treatment of human cancers. In this report we summarize our findings that scid mice support the growth of human tumors and we establish here that this mouse is a viable model with which to evaluate the antibody directed delivery of cytotoxic agents to human lung tumors.