Examinations concerning the development of lymphoma following transplantation i.p. of AKR mouse lymphoma cells into hybrid mice.

Authors used a mouse lymphoma line--originated from a spontaneous AKR lymphoma--for serial transplantation into AKR mice. The homogenizate of the thymoma was always transplanted i.p. into the same mouse strain. When the cells taken from leukemic AKR mice were transplanted into adult C3H/He mice, these did not cause leukemia in the recipients. However, it turned out that the lymphoma cells were able to proliferate in the F3 hybrids of AKR male mouse crossed with C3H/He female. The question then arose, whether the donor cells originated from the AKR mouse grew and caused the lymphoma, or the transplanted cells would induce the cells of the recipient to develop lymphoma. On the basis of the results it was established that the AKR lymphoma cells themselves started developing in the recipients, when they were transplanted into hybrid mice and the cells of the recipient did not. The identification of the transplanted cells was done by the presence of the Rb [4.15] metacentric marker chromosome. These cells were found in the thymus, the lymph nodes and in the developing ascites of the hybrid mice. Two kinds of cell types were found in the lymph nodes, one of them contained the marker, while other did not. The spleen cells were free of the marker chromosome. These data suggest that the thymus manifestation of the AKR mouse lymphoma is heterogeneous--it consists at least of two major types of tumor cells. One of them has affinity to the thymus and the lymph nodes, while the other to the spleen and the lymph nodes too.