Plasma Cell Neoplasia in a Single Host: A Mosaic of Different Protein-Producing Cell Types

Abstract

The peritoneal plasma cell neoplasias that develop in strain BALB/c mice after the injection of adjuvant-staphylococcus mixtures or mineral oil alone appear in the form of multiple nodules in the mesentery and on peritoneal surfaces. Experiments were done to determine if these nodules were metastases or multiple primary neoplasms. Nodules or pieces of masses were transplanted subcutaneously by the trochar method or by insertion of tissue under the kidney capsule from 6 primary cases and parallel transplant lines were established. The serum and urinary protein abnormality (a stable heritable characteristic) of each of the various transplant lines was characterized by agar gel electrophoresis and immunoelectrophoresis. Different protein-producing lines were found in 3 cases; in one case 5 different protein-producing lines were isolated. Two different lines were found for each of the other 2 cases. When transplantation studies were begun early, it was demonstrated that the nodules were multiple primary plasma cell neoplasms; when delayed, only one protein-producing plasma cell neoplasm was found.

Clonal diversification of primary BALB/c plasmacytomas harboring T(12;15) chromosomal translocations

“…In the most dramatic case, as many as five independent cell lines were derived from one mouse. 30 This result was particularly instructive because it went beyond simply indicating that BALB/c mice may harbor mosaics of T(12;15) translocated plasma cells. Instead, it strongly suggested that a significant number of plasmacytic clones, which are diagnosed by the histomorphologist as aberrant, have already completed malignant transformation, and are thus able to give rise to plasmacytomas upon transplantation.…”

Phenotypic diversity in leukemia cell populations

“…It is expected that a serially transplanted tumor cell mass consists of a more homogeneous population than a primary tumor as the multiple passages may select for a variant(s) with the highest growth rate and/or highest degree of adaptability to the environment in the tissue compartment which the tumor is grafted into. This was illustrated by Potter (28) very early in his work on murine plasmocytomas and by Prehn (29) in his work on methylcholantrene (MCA)-induced mouse sarcomas. In the latter work, Prehn found that antigenically different sublines of malignant cells could be isolated from MCA-induced sarcomas, but that the antigenic heterogeneity was lost during serial transplantation.…”

The relation between chronic polyneuropathy and osteosclerotic myeloma.

“…As experimental myeloma progresses there emerges one particular strain of cells (Potter, 1962); this situation may well occur in man (Bachmann, 1965). Waldenstrom, Winblad, Hallen, and Liungman(1964) found that myelomatous plasma cells continue to form the same pattern of immunoglobulins as their ancestral plasma cells, and there sometimes results the production in great amount of one 'specific' antibody without an inducing antigen.…”