Cancer Research. 2008 Sep 1;68(17):7120-9. [Link]

Fukazawa T, Matsuoka J, Naomoto Y, Maeda Y, Durbin ML, Tanaka N.

Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan. FukazawaT@aol.com

Abstract

Gene therapy and virotherapy are one of the approaches used to treat malignant pleural mesothelioma. To improve the efficiency of targeting malignant mesothelioma cells, we designed a novel system using the promoter of the CREBBP/EP300 inhibitory protein 1 (CRI1), a gene specifically expressed in malignant pleural mesothelioma. Four tandem repeats of the CRI1 promoter (CRI1(-138 4x)) caused significantly high promoter activity in malignant pleural mesothelioma cells but little promoter activity in normal mesothelial cells and normal fibroblasts. The recombinant adenoviral vector expressing proapoptotic BH3-interacting death agonist or early region 1A driven by the CRI1(-138 4x) promoter induced cell death in malignant mesothelioma cells but not in normal cells. Moreover, these viruses showed antitumor effects in a mesothelioma xenograft mouse model. Here, we describe a novel strategy to target malignant mesothelioma using the CRI1(-138 4x) promoter system.

Posted in Full Archive, Gene Therapy, New & Novel, Pleural, Treatment, Type of Assessment:, Type of Mesothelioma: