Low antibody responsiveness is found to be associated with resistance to chemical skin tumorigenesis in several lines of Biozzi mice

High and low antibody responder lines of mice from Selections I, III and G were assayed for two-step skin tumorigenesis using a protocol consisting in initiation with 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA) and promotion with 1 2-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA). Concordant results were obtained in the three selections: low antibody responder mice were shown to be sign ificantly more resistant to tumor induction than the high responder counter parts. The difference was observed for all parameters: kinetics and percent ages of tumor incidence and tumor multiplicity. The three bidirectional sel ective breeding experiments differed in several respects namely, the origin of the foundation populations, the antigens and immunization protocols use d during the selection, as well as the breeding unit environments. Therefor e, the consistent results relative to tumorigenesis strongly suggest that s ome of the alleles relevant to multispecific 'low' antibody production coul d contribute to the resistance to cutaneous chemical tumorigenesis. (C) 199 9 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.