REGRESSION OF EXPERIMENTAL HUMAN LEUKEMIAS AND SOLID TUMORS INDUCED BY EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS-IMMORTALIZED B-CELLS

We previously have reported on an experimental athymic mouse model in which regression of human Burkitt's lymphoma is induced by either coin jection with or intratumor inoculation of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-imm ortalized human B cells, In the current study, we were interested in d etermining whether the powerful antitumor effects of EBV-immortalized B cells could be effective against a variety of human tumors grown in athymic mice, including acute lymphocytic leukemia, malignant melanoma , acute promyelocytic leukemia, neuroblastoma, lung carcinoma, colon a denocarcinoma, Wilms tumor, Hodgkin's lymphoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and b reast adenocarcinoma. We report here the results of experiments in nud e mice that demonstrated the potent antitumor effect of EBV-immortaliz ed B cells against human tumors derived from a variety of different ti ssues.