title: Effective eradication of established murine tumors with IL-12 gene therapy using a polycistronic retroviral vector.
abstract: Our recent studies using IL-12 protein or fibroblasts genetically engineered to secrete IL-12 have demonstrated profound antitumor effects of IL-12 in murine models. The antitumor effects of local, high level IL-12 expression were examined using a retroviral vector, which can express both IL-12 subunits (p35 and p40) and the neomycin phosphotransferase (Neo)-marker gene from a polycistronic message utilizing internal ribosome entry site sequences. All animals intradermally (i.d.) receiving MCA207 murine sarcoma cell line nontransfected or Neo-transfected had progressively growing tumor, whereas all animals injected with MCA207 transfected with IL-12 were tumor free and were subsequently determined to be immune to a rechallenge of nontransfected MCA207 i.d. Similar results were obtained in experiments using the poorly immunogenic MCA102 murine sarcoma cell line. The inoculation of live MCA207-IL-12 tumor cells also caused the regression of contralateral nontransfected MCA207 inoculated either at the same time (80% protection) or up to 3 days before (33% protection) to the therapeutic tumor inoculation. In vivo depletion studies suggest that NK cells and IFN-gamma play important roles in the development of the early phase of the antitumor response, but that T cells (both CD4+ and CD8+) play the major role in the subsequent events, leading to long-term immunity. The potent antitumor effects observed for paracrine gene-delivered administration of IL-12 have thus been confirmed for multiple tumor cell types and in multiple murine strains. We believe that these results support the feasibility of IL-12 gene therapy for the treatment of human cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tahara
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zitvogel
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Storkus
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Zeh
authors.forename: T G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: McKinney
authors.forename: R D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Schreiber
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Gubler
authors.forename: P D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Robbins
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Lotze
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015496:CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D018414:CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D005260:Female; D015870:Gene Expression; D015316:Genetic Therapy; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D018664:Interleukin-12 / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000235:genetics*; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000276:immunology; D008212:Lymphocyte Depletion; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D009500:Neutralization Tests; D012190:Retroviridae / Q000235:genetics; D012513:Sarcoma, Experimental / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy; D014162:Transfection; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors
chemical_list: D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; D018664:Interleukin-12