Identification of carcinogens by measurement of cell-mediated immunity. III. Immunity to asbestos-induced rat peritoneal mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Identification of carcinogens by measurement of cell-mediated immunity. III. Immunity to asbestos-induced rat peritoneal mesothelioma, by D.A. Cole, R.H. Stevens, L.A. Will (Environmental Research, 1982).

The study

• Authors: D.A. Cole, R.H. Stevens, L.A. Will
• Journal: Environmental Research
• Published: 1982;28(1):77-83
• Cited by: 4 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Antitumor cell-mediated immune (CMI) responses were detected in rats with asbestos (Canadian chrysotile B)-induced peritoneal mesotheliomas. The CMI was determined by in vitro lymphoid-cell cytotoxicity expressed by committed peripheral blood lymphoid cells (PBLC) obtained from the tumor-bearing animals toward cultured target cells of the tumors. Two apparently different target cell cultures which were developed from tumors of the same rat, one with epitheliod and the other with fibroblastic morphology, were lysed to the same degree by the sensitized PBLC. Specificity was observed for the PBLC reactivity as no cytotoxicity was expressed toward target cells derived from tumors of either ectodermal or entodermal origin. Nor were PBLC obtained from rats bearing tumors of these two tissue types capable of expressing injury to the mesothelioma target cells. These findings indicate that immune responsiveness developed to mesothelioma and suggest that such measurements might be useful for detecting environmental exposures to asbestos fibers.

PubMed has no abstract for this study. This is the authors' abstract, copied from the article.

In plain English

This was a laboratory experiment in rats. The authors injected male inbred F344 rats in the abdomen with 25 mg of UICC standard reference Canadian chrysotile B asbestos weekly for 4 weeks, 100 mg in total. Control rats received the same amount of carbon particles, or saline only. Nearly 90% of the asbestos-injected rats developed visible mesotheliomas within 18 months. The carbon-injected controls showed no visible lesions. From one rat with peritoneal mesothelioma, the authors grew two kinds of tumor cells, epitheliod and fibroblastic. They then tested whether blood lymphoid cells from mesothelioma-bearing rats damaged those cells. Average cytotoxicity was 8.5% against the epitheliod cells and 8.7% against the fibroblastic cells, with no apparent significant difference between them. Blood cells from rats with small-bowel, colon or pancreas tumors did not damage the mesothelioma cells. Blood cells from mesothelioma-bearing rats did not damage small-bowel, pancreas or prostate tumor cells. The authors concluded that these rats develop detectable cell-mediated immunity that appears tissue specific. They noted the response might instead be nonspecific because of the large asbestos dose.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: animal experiment (laboratory study of cell-mediated immunity in rats with experimentally induced tumors)
• Who was studied: Male inbred F344 rats from Charles River Breeding Laboratories, studied at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. Control groups received carbon or saline only. The number of rats per group is not stated in words.
• Exposure: Intraperitoneal injection of 25 mg per week for 4 weeks (100 mg total) of UICC standard reference Canadian chrysotile B in saline. Controls received 100 mg of Norite A carbon, or saline only.
• Main results:
  • Nearly 90% of rats given 100 mg chrysotile B developed visible mesotheliomas within 18 months.
  • Carbon-injected control rats showed no visible lesions.
  • Blood lymphoid cells from mesothelioma-bearing rats injured both tumor cell cultures. The total mean cytotoxicity was 8.5% (standard error 2.1) against epitheliod target cells and 8.7% (standard error 1.3) against fibroblastic target cells, with no apparent significant difference between the two.
  • Carbon-injected rats showed no difference in response compared with saline-injected rats.
  • Blood lymphoid cells from rats with X-ray-induced small-bowel, DMH-induced colon, and DMBA-induced pancreas adenocarcinomas did not damage mesothelioma target cells.
  • Blood lymphoid cells from mesothelioma-bearing rats did not damage target cells from other tumors, including prostate, pancreas and small-bowel tumors.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that rats with asbestos-induced peritoneal mesothelioma develop detectable cell-mediated immune responses that appear to be tissue specific. They said further work is underway to see whether such measurements could be used as an assay for asbestos exposure.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The measurements might be detecting nonspecific cytotoxicity because the rats received a large dose of asbestos. The authors said preliminary studies appear to support specificity.
  • The assay conditions differed from those of human studies, which may explain why these results differ from human findings.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma, Peritoneal mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Peritoneal Mesothelioma, Chrysotile, Mesothelioma, Environmental Exposure.

Related studies

• Identification of environmental carcinogens utilizing T-cell mediated immunity — R.H. Stevens, D.A. Cole, et al. (1986)
• Analysis of depressed cell-mediated immunity in asbestos workers — R.D. deShazo, J. Nordberg, et al. (1983)
• Cyclic nucleotide concentrations in asbestos-induced rat peritoneal mesothelioma — R.H. Stevens, L.A. Will, et al. (1979)
• Transfection of the gene for B7-1 but not B7-2 can induce immunity to murine malignant mesothelioma — C.C. Leong, J.V. Marley, et al. (1997)
• Assessment of cell-mediated immunity to malignant mesothelioma by microcytotoxicity tests — M.J. Embleton, J.C. Wagner, et al. (1976)
• Ingredients such as trehalose and hesperidin taken as supplements or foods reverse alterations in human T cells, reducing asbestos exposure-induced antitumor immunity — S. Yamamoto, S. Lee, et al. (2021)

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