Antiangiogenic gene therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma using angiostatin gene.

Recent studies have reported that antiangiogenic gene delivery into cancer cells inhibits growth of certain tumors in vivo. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a hypervascular cancer, and antiangiogenic gene therapy might be suitable for HCC. In the present study, we investigated the antiangiogenic effects of angiostatin gene transduction into HCC both in vitro and in vivo. Angiostatin gene was cloned into a pSecTag2B mammalian expression vector to construct pSecTag2B-ANG. pSecTag2B or pSecTag2B-ANG were transfected into an HCC cell line, PLC/PRF/5, and then stable transfectants were obtained by Zeocin selection. pSecTag2B or pSecTag2B-ANG transfection did not alter the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a potent angiogenic stimulator, or pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), an angiogenic inhibitor, in PLC/PRF/5 cells. However, conditioned media (CM) derived from pSecTag2B-ANG-transfected PLC/PRF/5 cells (CM-ANG) suppressed the proliferation and migration of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) by 35% and 50%, respectively, relative to their effects on nontransfected cells. In in vivo experiments, pSecTag2B-ANG stable transfected (CM-Mock) and nontransfected cells (CM-N) were mixed at various proportions and the mixed cells were subcutaneously implanted into athymic mice. Suppression of tumor growth was noted in mice implanted with angiostatin gene-transfected cells, and such suppression was proportional with the percentage of transfected cells. Analysis of the vascular density in these tumors showed that the tumor growth suppression effect of angiostatin gene correlated with suppression of tumor vascularity. In conclusion, antiangiogenic gene therapy using angiostatin gene is potentially suitable for the treatment of patients with HCC.