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Bifidobacterium adolescentis as a delivery system of endostatin for cancer gene therapy: Selective inhibitor of angiogenesis and hypoxic tumor growth

Cancer Gene Therapy volume 10, pages 105–111 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

In order to overcome difficulties that hampered widespread application of antiangiogenesis in cancer therapy, a highly specific delivery system may be engaged in vivo to deliver and express antiangiogenic genes. We selected a strain of Bifidobacterium adolescentis (B. adolescentis) as the delivery system to transport endostatin gene to solid tumors. B. adolescentis with endostatin gene were injected into tumor-bearing mice through the tail vein. After the mice were sacrificed, the tumor and some normal tissues of the mice were examined. B. adolescentis were only found in the tumors and no bacilli were found in other normal tissues. Also, a strong inhibition of angiogenesis had been shown to inhibit local tumor growth in the administrated group. These results suggested that B. adolescentis only germinated and proliferated in solid tumors and might be a highly specific and efficient vector for transporting anticancer genes into target tumor in cancer gene therapy.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Grant BK20000001 from the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China, to GXX; Grant 30070250 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China; and a Grant-in-aid of “985 Project” from the Nanjing University to JJW. We thank Yan Chen (New York University School of Medicine) for reading this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Xi Li, Geng-Feng Fu, Jian-Jun Wang & Gen-Xing Xu

  2. Nanjing Military Medical College of Second Military Medical University, Nanjing, China

    Geng-Feng Fu, Yan-Rong Fan, Wen-Hua Liu, Xin-Juan Liu & Gen-Xing Xu

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  1. Xi Li
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Correspondence to Gen-Xing Xu.

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Li, X., Fu, GF., Fan, YR. et al. Bifidobacterium adolescentis as a delivery system of endostatin for cancer gene therapy: Selective inhibitor of angiogenesis and hypoxic tumor growth. Cancer Gene Ther 10, 105–111 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cgt.7700530

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cgt.7700530

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