Mice strain resistant to cancer

This story has been reported in the mainstream media in the last couple of weeks.

Below is an abstract of a scientific report.

BIOMEDICINE: Resisting Renegade Cells
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Stephen
J. Simpson

Despite the many examples involving experimental or clinical
stimulation of immune responses to tumor cells, it is not yet clear to what extent the immune system might be able to combat or suppress malignancy on its own.

The spontaneous remission/complete resistance (SR/CR) strain of mice is unusual in that it strongly resists challenges with high-dose
inoculations of tumor cells that would otherwise be lethal. This resistance
segregates as a single-locus dominant trait and correlates with significant
leukocyte infiltration of the cancer.

Building on their earlier findings, Hicks et al. report that the infiltrate
contains a variety of leukocyte subsets, including T cells, natural
killer (NK) cells, neutrophils, and macrophages. Direct contact and killing of tumor cells by these immune response effectors could be measured in
vitro, and resistance to both new and established cancers was conferred on wild-type mice by adoptive transfer of either bone marrow or other
leukocyte fractions. Notably, SR/CR resistance was maintained even
after depletion of B and T cells, revealing an innate immune component of the phenotype. The tantalizing possibility exists that characterization of thislocus will improve our understanding of immune-mediated resistance to malignancy. -- SJS

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103, 10.1073/pnas.0602382103 (2006).