Targeted Eradication of Prostate Cancer Mediated by Engineered Mesenchymal Stem Cell; Final rept. 15 Sep 2004-14 Mar 2008

摘要

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among men in North America. Our long-range goal is to develop an innovative non- invasive approach to reach those metastatic prostate cancer cells via tumor interacting stroma cells and eliminate them on-site through cytotoxic gene delivery. This is achieved by using engineered mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) as a gene delivery vehicle to reach tumor cells as they tend to serve as stroma bed for tumor growth. For the past year, significant progress has been made. We presented our research finding during the IMPaCT meeting in Atlanta in September. Briefly, we have re-established all the necessary resources for this project, including re-construction of therapeutic gene delivery vectors, engineering human MSC and LNCap tumor. We demonstrated in the SCID mice model that engineered MSC can support the establishment and growth of human prostate cancer cells subcutaneously and intra-tibialy. More importantly, those MSC engineered to express a suicidal gene HSV-TK can be used to reduce tumor growth upon administrating pro-drug. On the other hand, human MSC engineered to express a non-toxic reporter gene GFP after were unable to halt the tumor growth. These results will be presented in an international cancer conference (Cancer Congress 2008), as well as published as a scientific paper in scientific journal, which is under preparation.