Inhibition of tumor relapse by CIK cells after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.

BALB/c mice (H-2^d) received 2 × 10³BCL₁-gfp/luc lymphoma cells intravenously, and tumor engraftment was monitored and quantified by BLI on day 7 as described in “Materials and methods.” Following BLI, animals were lethally irradiated (8 Gy) and underwent transplantation within 24 hours with 5 × 10⁶whole BM cells from C57BL/6 animals (H-2^b). Treatment groups received either (A) BM alone (n = 11), (B) BM + 2.5 × 10⁶ splenocytes (n = 9), or (C) BM + 2.5 × 10⁶ CIK cells (n = 13). Tumor regression following irradiation was determined 2 or 3 days after irradiation, and animals were monitored by BLI for tumor relapse in weekly intervals thereafter (A-C). On the x-axes are days after tumor cell injection. The y-axes are relative light emission from individual animals over a 5-minute integration time. (D) Survival of animals from treatment groups A (■), B (▵), and C (○); on the x-axis are days after tumor cell injection. On the y-axis is the proportion of recipients surviving. (P < .0001 between all treatment groups.) (E) Tumor distribution pattern of one representative animal prior to irradiation (day 7), 2 days after irradiation (day 9), and 9 days after irradiation (day 16).