Abstract
Gene-directed enzyme prodrug therapy (GDEPT) is an approach that delivers a suicidal gene to cancer cells for the expression of prodrug-activating enzyme which converts prodrug into cytotoxic drug. One of the major impediments of GDEPT is to have the therapeutic gene specifically target on cancer cells prior to the administration of prodrug. Among various gene delivery methods, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have emerged as potential carriers for gene delivery. They exhibit remarkable tumor-tropic and low immunogenic capacities. In this study, MSCs was engineered to express thymidine phosphorylase (TP) which has the capability of converting the prodrug doxifluridine into toxic 5-fluorouracil. TP expression in the MSCs post-transfection of TP cDNA was confirmed by immunoblotting analysis and its activity was determined by spectrophotometric assay. Our results showed the anticancer effectiveness of human HT29 colorectal adenocarcinoma cells co-cultured with TP-expressing MSCs was enhanced with the addition of various dosages of doxifluridine. Citation Format: Nasrin Salehi, Ching-An Peng. Mesenchymal stem cell as delivery carrier for prodrug gene therapy against colorectal cancer cell. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 5352. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-5352