Immunotherapy using slow-cycling tumor cells prolonged overall survival of tumor-bearing mice

BMC Medicine

Shuren Zhang²  Youhui Zhang²  Wenbo Ma²  Dongmei Wang²  Chunxia Zhou²  Fan Wu¹  Yong Zhong²  Qing Sun² 

[1] Department of Abdominal Surgery, Cancer Hospital & Institute, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100021, China;Department of Immunology, Cancer Hospital & Institute, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100021, China

关键词: tumor vaccine;    slow-cycling tumor cells;    drug resistance;    cancer relapse;   

Others  :  857245
DOI  :  10.1186/1741-7015-10-172

 received in 2012-02-16, accepted in 2012-12-27,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Despite considerable progress in the development of anticancer therapies, there is still a high mortality rate caused by cancer relapse and metastasis. Dormant or slow-cycling residual tumor cells are thought to be a source of tumor relapse and metastasis, and are therefore an obstacle to therapy. In this study, we assessed the drug resistance of tumor cells in mice, and investigated whether vaccination could promote survival.

Methods

The mouse colon carcinoma cell line CT-26 was treated with 5-fluorouracil to assess its sensitivity to drug treatment. Mice with colon tumors were immunized with inactivated slow-cycling CT-26 cells to estimate the efficacy of this vaccine.

Results

We identified a small population of slow-cycling tumor cells in the mouse colon carcinoma CT-26 cell line, which was resistant to conventional chemotherapy. To inhibit tumor recurrence and metastasis more effectively, treatments that selectively target the slow-cycling tumor cells should be developed to complement conventional therapies. We found that drug-treated, slow-cycling tumor cells induced a more intense immune response in vitro. Moreover, vaccination with inactivated slow-cycling tumor cells caused a reduction in tumor volume and prolonged the overall survival of tumor-bearing mice.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that targeting of slow-cycling tumor cells application using immunotherapy is a possible treatment to complement traditional antitumor therapy.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Sun et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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