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Department of Urology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611 [A. H. S., W. B. T., S. D. K., V. C. L., C. L.]; Laboratory of Cell Regulation and Carcinogenesis, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland 20892 [S-J. K.]; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Massachusetts 02139 [L. V. P.]; Department of Urology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota 55905 [E. K.]; and Department of Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030 [N. M. G.]
| ABSTRACT |
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| Introduction |
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We chose to use a retroviral-mediated gene therapy approach abrogating TGF-ß signaling in hematopoietic stem cells in the BM, because this approach has been shown recently to be a successful protocol in the delivery of long-term transgene expression in immune effector cells (11) . Here, we show that abrogation of TGF-ß signaling in the immune compartment via retrovirus-mediated expression of a TßRIIDN in transplanted BM-derived stem cells elicits potent antitumor activity when treated animals are challenged i.v. with highly tumorigenic melanoma or prostate cancer cells.
| Materials and Methods |
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BM Isolation and Culture.
Donor mice were inhalation-anesthetized and were given injections i.p. of 5 mg of 5-fluorouracil (Sigma, St. Louis, MO). Five days later, mice were sacrificed by cervical dislocation and hind femora and tibiae were isolated and cleaned of tissue before being flushed aseptically with DMEM plus 10% fetal bovine serum (DMEM-10) using 26-gauge needles. The RBCs in the marrow preparation were then lysed using a hypotonic ammonium chloride solution (PharMingen, Becton-Dickinson, San Diego, CA). The processed marrow was resuspended in fresh DMEM-10 supplemented with 100 ng/ml stem cell factor, 50 ng/ml IL-6, and 20 ng/ml IL-3 (R&D, Minneapolis, MN) at 12 x 106 cells/ml, and were incubated at 37°C/5% CO2.
Construction of TßRIIDN-GFP Retroviral Vector.
The procedure for the construction of the TßRIIDN viral vector has been described earlier (12)
. Briefly, a truncated sequence of the human TGF-ß type II receptor was cloned into a mouse stem-cell virus-based bicistronic retroviral vector coexpressing GFP under the control of the 5' long terminal repeat viral promoter. The truncated receptor contained both the extracellular domain and the transmembrane domain but lacked the cytoplasmic kinase domain. The control empty vector was designated as the GFP vector.
Production of Infectious TßRIIDN-GFP Retrovirus.
Pantropic GP293 retroviral packaging cells (Clontech, San Diego, CA) were seeded at a density of 2.5 x 106 cells in collagen-I-coated T-25 flasks (BIOCOAT; BD Biosciences, Mountain View, CA) 24 h before plasmid transfection in antibiotic-free DMEM-10, such that the cells were
7090% confluent at the time of transfection, at which point the cells were rinsed with PBS to remove residual serum. A mixture of 2 µg of retroviral plasmid and 2 µg of VSV-G envelope plasmid were cotransfected in serum-free DMEM using LipofectAMINE-Plus (Invitrogen, Gaithersburg, MD) according to the manufacturers protocols with the following modifications. Cells were transfected for 12 h followed by the addition of an equivalent volume of DMEM-20 and reincubation for an additional 12 h. After 24 h of total transfection time, the supernatant was aspirated, the cells were rinsed gently in PBS, and 3 ml of fresh DMEM-10 was added to each flask. After 24 h, virus-containing supernatant was collected and used to infect target cells.
Western Blotting for SMAD-2 Phosphorylation.
The infected primary mouse BM cells were treated with or without 10 ng/ml TGF-ß1 for 30 min in culture to test the functionality of the TGFß signaling pathway (12)
. Proteins in the cell lysate were subjected to electrophoresis (Novex/10% acrylamide gel) and blotted onto a polyvinylidene difluoride membrane. Blots were probed using monoclonal antibody against phosphorylated SMAD-2. Blots were stripped and reprobed with antibodies against SMAD-2 and then glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH).
Retroviral Infection and Transplantation of Murine BM.
Cultured murine BM cells were infected on days 2 and 3 postisolation via spin infection as follows: an aliquot of 1 ml of viral supernatant was added to each well of a 24-well plate containing BM cells in the presence of a minimum concentration of 4 µg/ml Polybrene (Sigma), spun at 1000 x g for 90 min, and supplemented with 1 ml of fresh cytokine-supplemented DMEM-10. On day 45, cells were examined for GFP expression, washed two times in PBS, and injected into the lateral warmed tail veins of irradiated (1200 rads) recipient C57BL/6 mice. Transplanted mice were maintained on sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim for a minimum of 2 weeks to prevent opportunistic infection.
i.v. Inoculation of Tumor Cells into Mice after BM Transplant.
C57Bl/6 mice receiving TßRIIDN, GFP, or nontransduced BM transplants were challenged i.v. with 5 x 105 B16-F10 cells (n = 10 mice/group) or TRAMP-C2 cells (n = 5 animals/group) 2 months after transplant. The B16-F10-challenged mice were monitored for morbidity and mortality for 6 weeks, and the TRAMP-C2-challenged mice were monitored for 8 weeks. At the conclusion of each experiment, all of the animals were inspected for the presence of metastases. Statistical analysis was conducted on a Kaplan-Meier survival curve, using the log-rank test (13)
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| Results |
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Increased Survival and Decreased Metastases in TßRIIDN-BM-treated Mice.
C57BL/6 mice receiving TßRIIDN, GFP, or nontransduced BM transplants (n = 10 mice/group) were challenged with 5 x 105 B16-F10 cells i.v. and monitored for morbidity and mortality for a period of
6 weeks. Whereas 100% of wild-type and GFP transplant recipients were dead by 22 days postchallenge, there was no mortality observed in the TßRIIDN-BM recipient group (Fig. 1A)
by this time. The TßRIIDN-BM control group was monitored for a total period of 45 days postchallenge, at which point surviving (7 of 10) mice were sacrificed and their lung tissue removed for macroscopic examination to determine whether metastatic lesions comparable with those observed in the wild type-BM and GFP-BM control groups were present. As shown in Fig. 1B
, the lung tissue of untreated control mice was characterized at the time of death by numerous black melanoma metastases throughout the tissue. However, the TßRIIDN-BM-treated group had fewer metastatic lesions in the lungs of nonsurviving mice and virtually no discernable lesions in the lungs of mice surviving throughout the duration of the experiment. These results strongly suggest that mice transplanted with BM with targeted blockade of TGF-ß signaling generate potent antitumor immunity in C57BL/6 mice challenged with highly metastatic, nonimmunogenic tumor cells.
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| Discussion |
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In the present study, we demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of targeting progenitors of leukocyte populations in the BM with retroviral particles that specifically blocked TGF-ß signaling by expressing a dominant negative TGF-ß type II receptor with a truncated cytoplasmic domain. The lack of formation of metastatic lesions in TßRIIDN-BM-treated mice after i.v. administration with highly metastatic B16-F10 cells emphasizes the importance of the TGF-ß signaling pathway to tumorigenicity in vivo, even in the case of tumor cells with aggressive growth properties and little natural immunogenicity. Likewise, the lack of metastatic lesion formation in TßRIIDN-BM-treated animals after a challenge with TRAMP-C2 cells, a murine model of prostate cancer, supports the idea that this antitumor approach is viable in a range of cancers of different tissue origins.
The potency of TGF-ß as an immunoregulatory cytokine that is critical for the maintenance of immune homeostasis also necessitates the careful application of perturbations in the TGF-ß signaling processes for cancer immunotherapy. The potential for the generation of widespread autoimmunity and inflammation, which is generated in the absence of functional TGF-ß pathways in immune cells (12) , makes it essential that the approach described here be maximized for its utility as an antitumor therapy but modified so as to minimize potential autoimmune side effects against host tissue. Mice that are deficient in TGF-ß1 cytokine display a massive auto-inflammatory phenotype and quickly succumb to systemic damage in a variety of tissues (18 , 19) , whereas other transgenic models, restricted to TGF-ß-signal abrogation in the immune compartment or single lineages including T (20) and B cells (21) , similarly result in dysregulation of immune function. The retroviral approach to therapeutic gene delivery can be enhanced by vectors that offer a regulatory mechanism to control expression of the transgene and/or survival of transgene-positive cells, whether through the use of on/off systems responsive to pharmacological agents (e.g., tetracycline) or through the use of suicide gene elements present in the integrated viral genome.
We submit that the results presented here represent a viable approach to the problem of tumor escape from immune surveillance using readily available retroviral gene transfer technology, and we suggest that this approach could potentially be coupled with other immunostimulatory protocols that generate tumor-specific lymphocyte responses but that, to date, have had only mixed results because of a lack of cytotoxic effector activity, particularly with regard to distant metastatic tumor foci, as a result of TGF-ß-mediated immunosuppression. The hematopoietic stem-cell gene therapy approach, already established as a viable means for the delivery of therapeutic genes to cells of the immune system, provides a legitimate and characterized target for TGF-ß signaling-directed therapy for a potentially wide variety of cancers.
| FOOTNOTES |
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1 Supported in part by GrantDAMD17-99-1-9009 from the Department of Defense. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 303 East Chicago Avenue, Tarry 16-733, Chicago, IL 60611. Phone: (312) 908-2004; Fax: (312) 503-2685; E-mail: c-lee7{at}northwestern.edu ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: TGF-ß, transforming growth factor ß; GFP, green fluorescent protein; TßRIIDN, dominant negative type II TGF-ß receptor; BM, bone marrow; TRAMP, TGF-ß-targeted approach in a mouse metastatic model of prostate cancer; IL, interleukin. ![]()
Received 7/ 8/02. Accepted 10/31/02.
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