X-shaped DNA potentiates therapeutic efficacy in colitis-associated colon cancer through dual activation of TLR9 and inflammasomes

Molecular Cancer

Research

Jung Eun Koo¹  Joo Young Lee¹  Soong Ho Um²  Seung Won Shin² 

[1] Integrated Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, The Catholic University of Korea, 420-743, Bucheon, Republic of Korea;School of Chemical Engineering and SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University, 440-746, Suwon, Republic of Korea;

关键词: Immunostimulatory DNA;    Pattern recognition receptor;    Colon cancer;    Caspase-1;    Dendritic cells;    Immune adjuvant;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12943-015-0369-2

 received in 2015-02-16, accepted in 2015-04-21,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundImmunotherapy has been extensively pursed as a promising strategy for the treatment of cancer. Pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) play important roles in triggering activation of innate and adaptive immunity. Therefore, agents that stimulate PRRs could be useful for cancer immunotherapy. We developed two kinds of X-shaped double-stranded oligodeoxynucleotides (X-DNA), a single unit of X-DNA (XS-DNA) composed of four strands of DNA and a ligated X-DNA complex (XL-DNA) formed by crosslinking each XS-DNA to the other, and investigated if they had immunostimulatory activity and could be applied to anti-cancer immunotherapy.MethodsActivation of MAPKs and NF-κB was determined by immunoblotting in bone marrow-derived primary dendritic cells (BMDCs). Immune cytokines and co-stimulatory molecules were measured by ELISA and flow cytometry analysis. Anti-cancer efficacy was examined in an azoxymethane/dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis-associated colon cancer mouse model. Association of X-DNA and TLR9 was determined by co-immunoprecipitation followed by immunoblotting. The involvement of TLR9 and inflammasomes was determined using TLR9- or caspase-1-deficient BMDCs. Inflammasome activation was examined by degradation of pro-caspase-1 to caspase-1 and cleavage of pro-IL-1β to IL-1β in BMDCs.ResultsXL-DNA and XS-DNA induced activation of MAPKs and NF-κB and production of immune cytokines and co-stimulatory molecules in BMDCs. BMDCs stimulated by XL-DNA induced differentiation of naïve CD4+ T cells to TH1 cells. Intravenous injection of XL-DNA into mice resulted in increased serum IFN-γ and IL-12 levels, showing in vivo efficacy of XL-DNA to activate TH1 cells and dendritic cells. XL-DNA greatly enhanced the therapeutic efficacy of doxorubicin, an anti-cancer drug, in colitis-associated colon cancer. XL-DNA directly associated with TLR9. In addition, immunostimulatory activities of X-DNA were abolished in TLR9-deficient dendritic cells. Furthermore, X-DNA induced caspase-1 degradation and IL-1β secretion in BMDCs, which were abolished in caspase-1-deficient cells.ConclusionsX-DNA induced the activation of dendritic cells as shown by the expression of immune-cytokines and co-stimulatory molecules, resulting in the differentiation of TH1 cells, mediated through dual activation of TLR9 and inflammasomes. X-DNA represents a promising immune adjuvant that can enhance the therapeutic efficacy of anti-cancer drugs by activating PRRs.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© The Koo et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.