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Bifidobacterium longum as an oral delivery system of endostatin for gene therapy on solid liver cancer

Cancer Gene Therapy volume 12, pages 133–140 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

To overcome difficulties that hampered widespread application of a specific delivery system in cancer gene therapy and to inhibit the growth of solid liver cancer, we utilized a strain of Bifidobacterium longum as a delivery system to transport an endostatin gene that can inhibit growth of tumor. The B. longum strain with the endostatin gene (B. longum-En) was taken orally by tumor-bearing nude mice through drencher preparation. The results showed that B. longum-En could strongly inhibit the growth of solid liver tumor in nude mice and prolong the survival time of tumor-bearing nude mice. Furthermore, tumor growth was inhibited more efficiently when the B. longum-En treatment included selenium. Enriching the B. longum-En treatment with selenium improves the activity of NK and T cells and stimulates the activity of IL-2 and TNF-α in BALB/c mice. These results suggest that B. longum may be a highly specific and efficient vector for transporting anticancer genes in cancer gene therapy.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Amy Lawton-Rauh and Dr Bao-Hua Song (Department of Genetics and Evolution, Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology, Beutenberg Campus) for reading this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Geng-Feng Fu, Ya-Yi Hou & Gen-Xing Xu

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

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

  3. Jiangsu Research Center for Gene Pharmaceutical Engineering and Technology, Suzhou, China

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

  4. Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Xi Li

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  1. Geng-Feng Fu
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Correspondence to Gen-Xing Xu.

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Fu, GF., Li, X., Hou, YY. et al. Bifidobacterium longum as an oral delivery system of endostatin for gene therapy on solid liver cancer. Cancer Gene Ther 12, 133–140 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cgt.7700758

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