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The immune anti-tumor effects of GM-CSF and B7-1 gene transfection are enhanced by surgical debulking of tumor

Cancer Gene Therapy volume 8, pages 580–588 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is a solid tumor largely unresponsive to conventional therapies. Immunological gene therapy shows promise in murine models and human clinical trials; however, the role of surgery in combination with gene therapy has not been widely studied. The aim of this study was to determine if debulking surgery improved the effectiveness of gene therapy in a murine MM model. Mice were subcutaneously inoculated with the MM cell line, AC29, at two different sites, 4 days apart, to allow a surgical and distal site tumor to develop. Once tumors were established, the surgical site tumor was debulked and vaccination of syngeneic tumor transfectants encoding genes for IL-4, IL-2, GM-CSF, B7-1 or allogeneic MHC molecules commenced at a site away from both tumors, and tumor growth was measured. Neither debulking surgery nor gene therapy alone delayed tumor growth. However, there was a clear delay of tumor growth when debulking surgery was combined with vaccination of tumor transfectants expressing B7-1 or high levels of GM-CSF. Combinations of these two transfectants did not lead to a synergistic effect. This study demonstrates that debulking surgery can augment the immunostimulatory effects of immunological gene therapy and can delay tumor growth. This has implications for the future design of human gene therapy trials for solid tumors such as MM. Cancer Gene Therapy (2001) 8, 580–588

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Research Foundation, and the Australian Lung Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

    Sutapa Mukherjee, Delia Nelson, Ivonne van Bruggen & Bruce WS Robinson

  2. Department of Pharmacy, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

    Suzanne Loh & Michael J Garlepp

  3. Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

    Lyle J Palmer

  4. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

    Lyle J Palmer

  5. DNAX Research Institute, Palo Alto, California

    Clement Leong

  6. Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, Perth, Australia

    Bruce WS Robinson

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  1. Sutapa Mukherjee
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Correspondence to Sutapa Mukherjee.

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Mukherjee, S., Nelson, D., Loh, S. et al. The immune anti-tumor effects of GM-CSF and B7-1 gene transfection are enhanced by surgical debulking of tumor. Cancer Gene Ther 8, 580–588 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cgt.7700347

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