Abstract
Summary
A soluble membrane antigen was isolated from vaginal, vulvar and cervical cancer which reacted with antiserum prepared in a guinea pig against semipurified herpesvirus type 2. In a series of coded experiments, 20 of 21 sera from women with cervical cancer reacted in complement-fixation tests with a soluble membrane antigen from genital cancer cells, while reactions occurred in 5 of 21 sera from matched control women. Neither cancer nor control sera reacted with similar preparations from normal vaginal tissue. Antibody to the virus-induced soluble membrane antigen of cancer tissues appears, therefore, to be more prevalent in the cancer population but is also found in a matched control population.
This research was supported in part by the Anna Fuller Fund to the George Washington University. Support was also provided by Research Contract PH 43-NCI-E-68-678 within the Special Virus-Cancer Program and Research Career Development Award 5-K3-A124,943 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. We are grateful to Dr. Frank Bepko, D. C. General Hospital and Dr. William Jaffurs, Columbia Hospital for some of the tissue specimens, and to K. Kennard, K. Tanner and L. Tapner for assistance.
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