Specific Immune Response in Human Skin Carcinoma

Eight out of nine patients with squamous cell carcinoma of skin have shown immunological reactivity against their own tumour cells by one or more tests with their sera or peripheral blood lymphocytes. The tests included membrane and cytoplasmic immunofluorescence, and, with cultured tumour, complement-dependent serum cytotoxicity and lymphocyte attack. One case examined in depth had an unusually conspicuous lymphocyte and plasma cell reaction on histological examination, and was positive by all four tests; a time-lapse cinephoto-micrographic record over seven days was obtained of the attack on the carcinoma cells in culture by the patient''s lymphocytes.     

Immunological Reactivity in Patients with Carcinoma of Colon

Sixty cases of colonic carcinoma have been investigated for antitumour immunoreactivity. The tests employed were blood lymphocyte reactivity and complement-dependent serum cytotoxicity against cultured tumour cells, and immunofluorescence for membrane staining of viable tumour cells and cytoplasmic staining of dried tumour cells in films. Nineteen cases were positive by one or more tests and the most frequent positive response, lymphocytotoxicity, was detected in 8 of the 24 cases tested in this way. The lymphocytotoxicity persisted in a case tested three times over a year. Immunoreactivity against tumour cell surface, as by lymphocyte or serum cytotoxicity or membrane immunofluorescence, was restricted to colonic carcinomas but there was an additional element of individual specificity; cross-reactivity with other tissues and tumours was not observed. Lymphocytes from regional lymph nodes were non-reactive even in a case with positive blood lymphocyte cytotoxicity against the carcinoma cells.     

Lack of effect of maternal age on UV-induced DNA repair in mouse oocytes

Oocytes at the dictyate stage young (8–14 weeks) and old (12–15 months) BALB/c mice were manually isolated and UV-irrdiated. They were cultured for 1 h in medium containing tritiated thymidine and chased for a furthur hour in cold thymidine medium before being incubated for 18–20 h in medium with no added thymidine. Oocytes which had developed to metaphase II were analysed following autoradiography. Pooled results from 14 replicate experiments revealed no significant age-related difference between the mean corrected grain count per cell [159.2 ± 8.5 (86 cells) for young mice and 164.6 ± 9.8 (70 cells) for the old animals]. Thus in the female mouse the oocyte's capacity to repair UV-induced damage is apparently maintained at a high level throughout reprodcutive life.