Fluorescent antibodies in cancer research: A review.

Opinions are divided as to how far fluorescentlabeled antibodies (F.A.) lend themselves to the elucidation of the immunological conditions pres ent with malignant tumors. It is, therefore, of in terest to discuss the results achieved up to the present, especially because the specificity of the method has recently caused much discussion. Only a few investigators have used fluorescent antibodies to demonstrate virus antigens in tu mors. In Shope papilloma, by use of fluorescent immune sera, a large amount of intranuclear virus antigen was demonstrated in the keratohyaline layer in wild rabbits, whereas only negligible amounts were found in the tame rabbits (20). An tigen could not be demonstrated in the proliferat ing epithelial cells, probably owing to lack of im mune activity of the virus nucleoprotein. In the Rous sarcoma Mellors (15) and Malmgren and co-workers (12) found mainly cytoplasmic, in part diffuse, but often spherical fluorescent bodies, and they were able to show a certain paral lelism between the amount of the tumor-producing virus injected and the fluorescence demonstrated, regardless of the size of the tumor—a finding which is supported by electron microscopic and biological investigations. In biopsies from patients given inoculations of West Nile virus, in a therapeutic trial, the virus was demonstrated by means of the F.A. method in cancer cells and leukocytes, but it was not pres ent in the strema (23). Most investigators have used fluorescent anti bodies along with other serological methods to evaluate the antigenic properties of malignant cells compared with homologous normal cells.