Abstract
THE water-soluble, cationic polymer diethylaminoethyl (DEAE) dextran, when added to many animal virus preparations, apparently facilitates the adsorption and penetration of viral particles into cells, and thereby increases the titre. This has led to the suggestion1 that DEAE-dextran might usefully be incorporated into vaccines, at least those designed for veterinary use. This proposal has received considerable attention recently in the investigation of effective immunization procedures against foot and mouth disease2–5. We report here a series of experiments in which DEAE-dextran preparations were injected subcutaneously into mice, and unexpectedly gave rise to fibrosarcomas at the site of injection. These results provide a warning that injection of vaccines containing DEAE-dextran may give rise to tumours in other species.
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RICE, J., MADISON, R. Subcutaneous Injections of Vaccine Adjuvant DEAE-Dextran induce Local Sarcomas in Mice. Nature New Biology 236, 28 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1038/newbio236028a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/newbio236028a0