Survival of skin homografts in methylcholanthrene-treated mice and in mice with spontaneous mammary cancers.

Abstract

The effect of methylcholanthrene (MC) on the survival of skin homografts was studied in various donor/host combinations. In systems where there was a strong antigenic difference involving the histocompatibility-2 (H-2) locus, MC did not influence the survival of the skin grafts. In weaker (non-H-2) antigenic systems the survival of the skin was prolonged in animals grafted shortly before, at the same time as, or shortly after the appearance of MC-induced sarcomas. In animals grafted during the earlier part of the latent period of tumor development, graft survival was not affected. The effect of the spontaneous mammary cancers was more variable, and most of the tumor-bearing animals did not show a depressed homograft response; the others, being in a highly advanced stage of the disease, showed moderate prolongation of graft survival.