I used a combination therapy to cure established tumor in mice. Some of them recovered completely. I want to use those recovered mice to find out about the type of immune response involved in showing the anti tumor response.
which tumor did you use? do you know which tumor specific antigens you can find there? If so - I would suggest two options: collect spleens from the recovered mice and 1) incubate splenocytes in the presence of peptide from the tumor-specific protein, CD8 or CD4 T cell restricted. Check either proliferation of specific T cells or activation by intracellular IFN gamma staining. At the same time you can check the memory status of responding (IFN gamma producing) cells. 2) you can perform IFN gamma ELISpot using splenocytes from treated mice. Activate them as described above.
Another option - transplant tumor cells into naive mice and transfer CFSE or CPD lebeled splenocytes from the recovered mice. CHeck out tumor rejection and, if tumor will appear, delay in tumor growth and whether donor's cells are accumulating in the tumor. Here it would be also useful to show memory status and IFN gamma production of tumor-infiltrating donor leukocytes (lymphocytes mostly, I would expect).
Good luck!
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