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Cancer Therapy: Preclinical |
Authors' Affiliation: Department of General Surgery, General Hospital of Beijing Military Command, Beijing, China
Requests for reprints: Bo Yu, Department of General Surgery, General Hospital of Beijing Military Command, No. 5 Nan Men Cang, East District, Beijing 100700, China. Phone: 010-66721189; E-mail: yubo66{at}126.com.
| Abstract |
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Experimental Design: HR-8348 cell line of human rectal cancer was used to assess efficiency of transfection with plasmid pEGFP-N1 and PXJ41-CD. The cells were exposed to radiation followed by liposome-mediated transfection. Cell inhibition assay was done with 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide method. Antitumor efficacy of combined liposome-mediated CD suicide gene therapy with radiation was determined by treatment of nude mice bearing HR-8348 cancer cell xenograft.
Results: The efficiency of liposome-mediated CD gene transfection can be improved by radiation. With radiation at 2, 4, 6, and 8 Gy, the efficiency of liposome-mediated transfection increased from 21.3% to 62.2%, 78.0%, 83.2%, and 87.8%, respectively. CD expression was enhanced as well. Cancer cell inhibition experiment showed that combined liposome-mediated CD gene therapy with radiation had much stronger antitumor effect. With HR-8348 tumor xenograft model, suppression of tumor xenograft was observed. Compared with control group, tumor volume was inhibited by 81.5%, 48.5%, and 37.4%, respectively, in the combined CD/5-fluorocytosine with radiation group, CD/5-fluorocytosine group, and radiation group and the wet weight of tumor was decreased by 80%, 41.7%, and 37.7%, respectively.
Conclusion: These findings suggested that combination of liposome-mediated CD gene therapy with radiation is a safer and efficient anticancer method. Its therapeutic efficacy may meet clinical treatment on local recurrent rectal cancer.
Key Words: Cytosine deaminase Gene therapy Radiation Rectal cancer recurrent cancer
65% in general. Despite use of multimodality strategy, local recurrence alone or in combination with distant metastases causes severe and fatal outcome in patients who underwent excision of primary rectal carcinoma (1, 2). Only a minority of patients with local recurrent rectal cancer has limited disease amenable to surgical resection. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy have been main approaches for treatment of local recurrent rectal cancer. However, local recurrent rectal cancer is associated with poor outcome and still represents a great challenge to clinical treatment. Suicide gene therapy, such as cytosine deaminase (CD)/5-fluorocytosine (5-FC) system, has been used in experimental treatment for colorectal carcinoma, because CD converts 5-FC to 5-fluorouracil, which is a conventional medicament for colorectal cancer (3, 4). Most studies have used a variety of viral vectors, such as retrovirus and adenovirus, which are of high transfection efficiency (57). However, their untoward reactions to the patients also aroused grave concern (8, 9). Liposome is often used in laboratory for mediating gene transfection. Although this method is safer, the low transfection efficiency cannot meet the clinical therapeutic requirements. Some studies have reported that radiation can promote gene transfection efficiency (10, 11). In this study, we combined liposome-mediated suicide gene therapy with radiation to improve killing effect on cancer cells. We hope it can be a new strategy for the treatment of recurrent rectal cancer and other solid tumors.
| Materials and Methods |
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Recombinant plasmid vectors. The recombinant plasmid vector plasmid PXJ41-CD constructed from plasmid PXJ41 and PCD2 bears a 1.5-kb fragment containing full length of CD cDNA sequence. Both PXJ41 and PCD2 were digested with restriction endonucleases EcoRI and BamHI. The CD cDNA sequence was cut off from PCD2. After CD and vector PXJ41 were retrieved, T4 ligase was used to ligate them subsequently. The PXJ41-CD vector was obtained and then verified by DNA sequencing analysis. Plasmid pEGFP-N1 containing green fluorescent protein cDNA was used for the observation of transfection efficiency.
Cell irradiation and transfection. The cells attached in flasks were irradiated in a 60Co source (Beijing Radiation Medical Institute, Beijing, China) to a final dose of 2, 4, 6, and 8 Gy. One hour after radiation, PXJ41-CD and pEGFP-N1 were transfected into HR-8348 cells with a Lipofectin protocol. After 36 hours, the cells were observed under an inverse fluorescence microscope, and transfection efficiency was calculated by counting green fluorescence cells.
Detection of cytosine deaminase mRNA expression. Quantitative reverse transcription-PCR was done to confirm CD transfection and the expression of CD mRNA. Total RNA was extracted from the CD-transfected cells. For CD-specific primers, sense 5'-TGAGCAGGAAGTCGCGCC-3' and antisense 5'-GCACTCCTATAACGGGGCG-3', amplification fragment was 367 bp. Housekeeping ß-actin mRNA expression was used as an internal control.
Cancer cell inhibition assay. HR-8348 cells were seeded into a 96-well plate in 100 µL RPMI 1640 per well and incubated for 24 hours. The cells were divided into four groups: radiation, CD/5-FC, combined radiation and CD/5-FC, and blank control. Each group of cells was treated according to the grouping arrangement. After incubation for 48 hours, 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (20 µL, 5 mg/mL, Sigma) was added for further incubation of 4 hours at 37°C. The medium was removed from each well and DMSO (100 µL) was added and incubated for 15 minutes. Spectrometric absorbance at 540 nm was measured with a plate reader. The cell survival rate was calculated with the following equation: {1 (experimental group absorbance / control group absorbance)} x 100%.
Tumor xenograft therapeutic experiments. Forty female BALB/C-nu/nu nude rats, 4 to 5 weeks old, were provided by the Centre Institute of Identifying Biological Products (Beijing, China). HR-8348 cells were inoculated (0.2 mL/rat, 5 x 107 cells/mL) s.c. at the right posterior limbs of the rat. When the tumor grew up to 0.5 cm in diameter, the rats were randomly divided into four groups, each for 10 animals. In group 1, radiotherapy group, the xenograft tumor of rats received radiation 2 Gy/d for 15 days. In group 2, CD gene therapy group, Lipofectin-PXJ41-CD (200 µL) was injected into the xenograft tumor of rat through multipoint injection on the 1st, 4th, 8th, and 12th days, and on the third day, 5-FC (800 mg/kg) was injected into the abdominal cavity each day for 12 days. In group 3, radiation and CD gene therapy group, the radiation protocol was just as that in group 1 and the gene therapy protocol as that in group 2. In group 4, control group, the rats received no therapeutic intervention.
On the 30th day of treatment, the rates of all groups were sacrificed and the tumors were dissected, measured, and weighed. The equation for calculating repression rate of tumor volume is {(mean volume of the control group mean volume of the experimental group) / mean volume of the control group} x 100%. The equation for calculating repression rate of tumor weight is {(mean weight of the control group mean weight of the experimental group) / mean weight of the control group} x 100%. The tumor repression rate was used to evaluate the curative effect of the methods on tumors.
Tumor histopathologic examination. Xenograft tumor tissues from the rats were fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin. Tissue samples were paraffin embedded, sectioned, and H&E stained for histopathologic evaluation.
Statistical analysis. The data from the different groups were compared statistically by one-way ANOVA and the
2 test using SPSS 10.0 statistical software. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
| Results |
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/ 6 x (major axis x minor axis)2, and the tumor growth curve was drawn (Fig. 4). The growth curve of tumor xenograft was much slower on the 8th day in the combined group than in the other groups (P < 0.01). Compared with the control group, tumor volume was inhibited by 81.5%, 48.5%, and 37.4%, respectively, in the combined CD/5-FC with radiation group, CD/5-FC group, and radiation group and wet weight of tumor was decreased by 80%, 41.7%, and 37.7%, respectively. The differences of the repression rates were significant between the combined CD/5-FC with radiation group and the single CD/5-FC or radiation group (P < 0.01; Fig. 5).
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Histopathologic examination of the xenograft tumor tissues showed that the number of cells of xenograft tumors was reduced significantly and a great deal of adipocytes substituted for the cancer cells in the group that received combined radiation and CD gene therapy, but a slight decrease of cancer cells was observed in the group subjected to simple radiation or liposome-mediated CD gene therapy compared with the control group (Fig. 6).
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| Discussion |
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Great progress has been made in gene therapy, especially the suicide gene therapy that is considered clinically prospective (13, 14). Many gene therapy trials have been done with adenoviral or retroviral vectors (1517). These vector systems have a relatively high efficiency of transfection, but they also have several major limitations and even cause serious side effects on human body. Liposome-mediated gene transfer has several advantages over viral vector-mediated gene transfer systems (18, 19). In particular, liposomes are not immunogenic and are safe for clinical use. The major disadvantage of liposome-mediated gene therapy is the lower efficiency of transfection. If liposome-mediated gene transfer can be enhanced sufficiently, the clinical use of noviral vectors may be possible.
Several studies have reported that radiation improves gene transfer (20, 21). In this study, we used irradiation to enhance transfection efficiency of the CD suicide gene. Thus, we combined conventional radiation with gene therapy.
The vectors and the gene transfecting methods are the main restrictions of tumor gene therapy. Clinically, liposome-mediated gene transfer is suitable, but its lower efficiency of transfection should be improved. In this study, radiation enhanced liposome-mediated gene transfer significantly. However, dose-response relationship existed between irradiation and gene transfer. In in vitro and in vivo experimental studies, an irradiation dose of 2 Gy was used according to clinical practical radiotherapy. A 2.8-fold enhancement of CD transfection efficiency resulted from irradiation of the HR-8348 human rectal cancer cell line. Cancer cell inhibition assay presented a satisfied result in killing cancer cells. Radiation can enhance CD transfer to cancer cells, and CD/5-FC can increase the sensitivity of radiation to cancer cells (22, 23). In this combination, radiotherapy and CD gene therapy facilitate each other in killing cancer cells. The lower efficiencies of liposome-mediated CD gene transfer and expression are improved in cancer cells, and the main defect of liposome is overcome. As the efficiencies of CD transfer and expression are enhanced, the radiosensitizing effect of CD/5-FC on cancer cells is increased. More powerful therapeutic effect on cancer cells can be obtained.
In this study, tumor xenograft treatment showed that combined liposome-mediated CD gene therapy with radiation has much stronger anticancer effect. Xenograft tumors can be treated with a clinical radiation dose of 2 Gy/d followed by liposome-mediated CD transfer via direct tumor injection. Although the radiation dose and the efficiency of CD transfection are limited with one-time treatment, daily radiation and repeated injection of liposome-mediated CD gene transfer may lead to the accumulation of radiation dose and increase of efficiency of CD transfection. Thus, xenograft tumor inhibition is satisfied. In this study, the growth of the tumors was inhibited significantly, and histopathologic study showed that the tumor cells and their division are reduced markedly. These evidence prove that combined liposome-mediated CD gene therapy with radiation is safe and more efficient for killing rectal carcinoma cells and that its effect meets the clinical requirement.
In conclusion, irradiation enhances liposome-mediated CD gene transfer and expression, and CD transfer facilitates radiosensitization of cancer cells. Combined radiation with CD gene therapy is adequate to improve anticancer effect and is highly potential in clinical treatment of recurrent rectal cancer and other solid tumors.
| Footnotes |
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Received 10/ 9/04; revised 12/18/04; accepted 2/ 9/05.
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