Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts: Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound   Target Concepts: Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound

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Query: UMLS:C0027651 (tumor)
685,946 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A major obstacle in cancer gene therapy is selective tumor delivery. Previous studies have suggested that genetically engineered anaerobes of the genus Clostridium might be gene therapy vectors because of their ability to proliferate selectively in the hypoxic/necrotic regions common to solid tumors. However, the tumor colonization efficiency of the strain previously used was insufficient to produce any antitumor effect. Here we describe for the first time the successful transformation of C. sporogenes, a clostridial strain with the highest reported tumor colonization efficiency, with the E. coli cytosine deaminase (CD) gene and show that systemically injected spores of these bacteria express CD only in the tumor. This enzyme can convert the nontoxic prodrug 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC) to the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Furthermore, systemic delivery of 5-FC into mice previously injected with CD-transformed spores of C. sporogenes produced greater antitumor effect than maximally tolerated doses of 5-FU. Since most human solid tumors have hypoxic and necrotic areas this vector system has considerable promise for tumor-selective gene therapy.
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PMID:Anticancer efficacy of systemically delivered anaerobic bacteria as gene therapy vectors targeting tumor hypoxia/necrosis. 1189 68

Insufficient blood supply of rapidly growing tumors leads to the presence of hypoxia, a well-known feature in solid tumors. Hypoxia is known to decrease the efficiency of currently used anti-cancer modalities like surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Therefore, hypoxia seems to be a major limitation in current anti-cancer therapy. The use of non-pathogenic clostridia to deliver toxic agents to the tumor cells takes advantage of this unique physiology. These strictly anaerobic, Gram-positive, spore-forming bacteria give, after systemic administration, a selective colonization of hypoxic/necrotic areas within the tumor. Moreover, they can be genetically modified to secrete therapeutic proteins like cytosine deaminase or tumor necrosis factor-alpha. The specificity of this protein delivery system can be further increased when expression is controlled by the use of a radio-inducible promoter, leading to increased spatial and temporal regulation of protein expression. This approach of bacterial vector systems to target protein expression to the tumor can be considered very safe since bacteria can be eliminated at any moment by the addition of proper antibiotics. The Clostridium-based delivery system thus presents an alternative therapeutic modality to deliver anti-tumor agents specifically to the tumor site. This high selectivity offers a major advantage in comparison with the classical gene therapy systems.
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PMID:Clostridium spores for tumor-specific drug delivery. 1190 3

The development of novel cancer therapies that are selective for cancer cells with limited toxicity to normal tissues is a challenge for oncology researchers. Microorganisms, such as viruses with selectivity for tumor cells or tumor micro-environments, have been investigated as potential arsenals for decades. Genetically-modified, non-pathogenic bacteria have begun to emerge as potential antitumor agents, either to provide direct tumoricidal effects or to deliver tumoricidal molecules. Attenuated Salmonella, Clostridium and Bifidobacterium are capable of multiplying selectively in tumors and inhibiting their growth, representing a new approach for cancer treatment. Because of their selectivity for tumor tissues, these bacteria would also be ideal vectors for delivering therapeutic proteins to tumors. VNP20009, an attenuated strain of Salmonella typhimurium, and its derivative, TAPET-CD, which expresses an Escherichia coli cytosine deaminase (CD), are particularly promising, and are currently undergoing phase I clinical trials in cancer patients.
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PMID:Live bacteria as anticancer agents and tumor-selective protein delivery vectors. 1192 25

Standard chemotherapeutic agents and ionizing radiation destroy dividing cells. Because tumor cells divide more rapidly than normal cells, there is a therapeutic index in which damage to the cancer cells is maximized while keeping the toxicity to the normal host cells acceptable. Suicide gene therapy strives to deliver genes to the cancer cells, which convert nontoxic prodrugs into active chemotherapeutic agents. With this strategy, the systemically administered prodrug is converted to the active chemotherapeutic agent only in cancer cells, thereby allowing a maximal therapeutic effect while limiting systemic toxicity. A literature search was conducted using the MEDLINE database from 1990 to 2001 to identify articles related to suicide gene therapy for cancer. A number of suicide gene systems have been identified, including the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene, the cytosine deaminase gene, the varicella-zoster virus thymidine kinase gene, the nitroreductase gene, the Escherichia coli gpt gene, and the E. coli Deo gene. Various vectors, including liposomes, retroviruses, and adenoviruses, have been used to transfer these suicide genes to tumor cells. These strategies have been effective in cell culture experiments, laboratory animals, and some early clinical trials. Advances in tissue- and cell-specific delivery of suicide genes using specific promoters will improve the clinical utility of suicide gene therapy.
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PMID:Current progress in suicide gene therapy for cancer. 1194 67

Yeast cytosine deaminase (yCD)-based gene therapy offers the potential for selective production of the cytotoxic and radiosensitizing drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) from the benign prodrug 5-fluorocytosine within colorectal cancers. Although previous attempts to target therapy to colorectal cancer using the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) promoter have demonstrated specificity, this has been achieved at the cost of 10- to 300-fold loss in activity compared with strong but nonspecific rous sarcoma virus (RSV) or cytomegalovirus promoters. We developed a highly specific and active gene transfer method for colorectal cancer using CEA under control of a promoter-enhancer. We compared the RSV promoter-derived with the CEA promoter-enhancer-derived transgene expression in 10 different cell lines with differing CEA status. We found that the transgene expression resulting from both transient transfection and adenoviral infection with the CEA promoter-enhancer was as strong as the RSV promoter while maintaining specificity for CEA-producing cell lines. For instance, when we compared yCD expression between LoVo (CEA+) and human fibroblast (CEA-), we found a 30-fold-increased yCD expression in LoVo cells from CEA-enhancer adenovirus although there was no difference in the yCD expression between the cell lines when infected with RSV/yCD virus. This specificity was also achieved while maintaining a higher yCD enzyme activity than we obtained with RSV/yCD adenovirus in an HT-29 intrahepatic tumor model. We then compared the response of HT-29 xenografts to treatment with 5-fluorocytosine and yCD adenovirus driven by either the RSV or the CEA promoter-enhancer and found similar tumor growth inhibition. These findings suggest that the CEA promoter-enhancer strategy confers specificity while preserving activity and is worth exploring in additional animal and, potentially, clinical trials.
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PMID:High and selective expression of yeast cytosine deaminase under a carcinoembryonic antigen promoter-enhancer. 1195 93

Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-TK) and Escherichia coli cytosine deaminase (CD) are non-mammalian enzymes capable of converting innocuous prodrugs into cytotoxic metabolites. Both enzymes have been utilized independently, as well as together in 'suicide' gene therapy protocols to eliminate tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. We have used a set of replication defective HSV vectors expressing either or both enzymes to compare the efficacies of single and double suicide gene therapies in the 9L gliosarcoma model in vitro and in vivo. In cell culture experiments at high and low multiplicities of infection, combined expression of the two genes by vector TOCD/TK along with exposure to the matching prodrugs (ganciclovir and 5-fluorocytosine) showed increased cytotoxicity compared with exposure to either prodrug alone. However, the two gene combination was inferior to single gene treatments, suggesting that HSVtk and CD are mutually counteractive in the prodrug-dependent killing of glioma cells. In animal experiments, survival was not significantly prolonged by administration of both prodrugs to TOCD/TK-treated animals, while each single gene/prodrug pair resulted in increased survival. These results indicate that single suicide gene systems employing HSVtk or CD may be preferable over combinations of the two.
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PMID:Double suicide gene therapy using a replication defective herpes simplex virus vector reveals reciprocal interference in a malignant glioma model. 1197 34

The cytosine deaminase (CD) gene converts the nontoxic prodrug, 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC), into 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). We previously showed that injection of CD-bearing cancer cells followed by 5-FC treatment can act as an autologous tumor vaccine in a syngenic liver metastasis model in rats. In the present work, we analyzed the antitumor efficiency of a direct intratumoral injection of a CD-expressing plasmid. In rats bearing microscopic or macroscopic metastases in right and left liver lobes, an injection of a CD-expressing plasmid was performed in the left lobe tumor, followed by 5-FC treatment of the animals. A significant regression of the DNA-injected tumor was observed in 5-FC-treated rats, both in microscopic (P =.007) or advanced (P <.0001) tumor models. Moreover, this treatment also induced a potent distant bystander effect on untreated controlateral liver tumors and extrahepatic metastases, resulting in an increased survival compared with control animals in both tumor models (P <.05). In conclusion, these data suggest that direct intratumoral injection of a CD-expressing plasmid, associated to 5-FC administration, can constitute a powerful and innocuous alternative treatment for unresectable liver metastases from colon carcinoma.
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PMID:Naked DNA injection for liver metastases treatment in rats. 1198 64

To study the possibility of oral gene therapy using live attenuated Salmonella, eukaryotic expression vectors EGFPN1, pLCDSN were introduced into a live attenuated AraA(-) auxotrophic mutant of Salmonella typhimurium (SL3261) and were administered orally to BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. After six weeks, these mice were challenged with 4T(1) and Lewis cancer cells. Until the tumors reached to about 10 mm in diameter, 5-fluorocytosine was given through intraperitoneal injection. Flow cytometry, confocal microscopy and PCR methods were used to detect the integration and expression of the genes. The inhibition of the tumor and the survival time of the mice were also investigated. Results showed that cytosine deaminase gene integration could be detected in almost all kinds of mice tissue. And the GFP expression was much stronger in spleen and tumor than in other tissues. Cytosine deaminase/5-fluorocytosine system had significant antitumoractivities in vivo. The anti-tumor activities of cytosine deaminase/5-fluorocytosine at 500 mg/kg on 4T(1) and Lewis carcinoma in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice were more potent than the efficiency of 5-fluorouracil 10 mg/kg(P 0.05). Therefor, this experiment demonstrates the potential value of live attenuated Salmonella as carrier for oral gene therapy.
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PMID:Treatment of Tumor in Mice by Oral Administration of Cytosine Deaminase Gene Carried in Live Attenuated Salmonella. 1205 Aug 17

Using a syngeneic murine model, we investigated the therapeutic efficacy of combined gene therapy using adenoviral vectors expressing murine interleukin-2 (AdmIL-2) and Escherichia coli cytosine deaminase (AdCD). In a subcutaneous tumor model, tumor-bearing mice were treated with an intratumoral injection of adenoviral vectors and received an intraperitoneal administration of 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC). Only the mice treated with AdCD (2 x 10(8) pfu) and an intermediate dose of AdmIL-2 (1 x 10(6) pfu) survived significantly longer than mice treated with AdCD alone (P < 0.01). Moreover, 40% of these treated mice obtained complete remission from tumor-bearing status. The cytotoxicity of splenocytes obtained from the treated mice was related to the survival period. Tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte assay showed that the cell-mediated cytotoxic response was specific for parental tumor cells. In a hepatic metastasis model, mice treated with an intravenous administration of both AdCD (2 x 10(8) pfu) and an intermediate dose of AdmIL-2 (1 x 10(6) pfu) demonstrated the most significant reduction of metastatic foci and the longest survival following a 5-FC administration. These results suggest that gene therapy combined with AdmIL-2 and AdCD may be a promising strategy for clinical application and, in addition, that translation of combined gene therapy from murine models into the clinical setting will require careful attention to the variables of cytokine expression levels in the design of clinical trials and in the evaluation of treatment efficacy.
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PMID:Dose of adenoviral vectors expressing interleukin-2 plays an important role in combined gene therapy with cytosine deaminase/5-fluorocytosine: preclinical consideration. 1207 20

Colorectal cancer can metastasize to the liver, but remain liver confined for years. A critical step in developing treatments for intrahepatic cancer involves assessment in an orthotopic intrahepatic model. The purpose of this study was to develop a noninvasive intrahepatic tumor model to study the efficacy of 5-flucytosine/yeast cytosine deaminase (5FC/yCD)-based gene therapy for liver tumors. Luciferase expressing human colorectal carcinoma (HT-29luc) cells were generated by retroviral infection and implanted in the left liver lobe of nude mice. The bioluminescence was measured every week for a period of 1 month, then animals were killed and tumors were measured by calipers. After we found a correlation between photon counts and tumor size, animals were implanted with tumors composed of either 0%, 10%, or 100% yCD/HT-29luc cells, and treated with 5FC. Tumor bioluminescence was measured during treatment and tumor histology examined at the time of death. We found that 5FC caused significant regression of yCD expressing tumors. Furthermore, visible tumors at the time of death, which emitted little bioluminescence, contained little or no viable tumor. We then developed an adenoviral vector for yCD. Intraperitoneal administration of adenovirus containing yCD led to the production of yCD enzyme within intrahepatic tumors. These results suggest that (1) intrahepatic cancer responds to 5FC when cells express yCD; (2) the luciferin-luciferase system permits non-invasive real time imaging of viable intrahepatic cancer; and (3) this system can be used to carry out gene therapy experiments using yCD adenovirus.
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PMID:The potential of 5-fluorocytosine/cytosine deaminase enzyme prodrug gene therapy in an intrahepatic colon cancer model. 1208 Mar 78


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