Latest ArticlesThe research aims to study the effects of different stimulants on the activation of human lymphocytes. Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells were prepared by density centrifugation. The blood's sample was provided by National Institutes for Food and Drug Control and approved by its Ethics Committee. The expressions of CD69 in CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+ human T cells were detected by flow cytometry after administrated with CD3/CD28 antibody, phytohaemagglutinin (PHA), Staphylococcus auresus enterooxin B (SEB), interleukin (IL27) and PMA plus ionomycin for 24 h. The proliferation of lymphocyte was detected by CellTiter-Glo kit. The secreted IFNγ in supernatant of medium was examined by ELISA kit. The proliferation of lymphocytes had no change after exposed of CD3/CD28 antibody, SEB, IL27 and PMA plus ionomycin for 24 h. However, the CD69 expressions in CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+ T cells and IFNγ productions were significantly increased by CD3/CD28 antibody, SEB, IL27 and PMA plus ionomycin at 24 h, indicating that CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+ T cells were activated under above-mentioned stimulated condition. CD3/CD28 antibody, SEB, IL27 and PMA plus ionomycin were valid stimulants for T cell activation.
Tumor immunotherapy is a critical field in the development of anticancer drugs. The research of stimulator of interferon genes (STING) agonist provides a new idea for immunotherapy. Innate immune response can effectively be induced by nucleic acids in mammalian cytoplasm. In recent years, a large number of studies have confirmed that the cGAS-cGAMP-STING signaling pathway plays a key role in cytoplasmic DNA recognition and immune defense activation. The dysfunction of cGAS-cGAMP-STING is closely related to the tumorigenesis, and is a potent target for drug development. In this study, based on THP-1 dual cells which are stably expressing cGAS-STING pathway and THP-1 KO-STING cells which are stably depleted STING, a screening method for STING agonists was established by detection of luciferase. Furthermore, the accuracy and sensitivity of the model were verified using positive compound, providing a simple, efficient and accurate screening platform for high-throughput screening of STING agonists.
In this study, we used the tumor immunotherapy protein indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) as the target, and proposed an enzyme-cell-based tertiary IDO1 inhibitor high throughput screening platform. Firstly, the recombinant human IDO1 protein was expressed by genetic engineering and efficient IDO enzymatic screening system was established. Secondly, A172 cells stimulated with interferon-γ (IFNγ) or constructed plasmid which could highly express human IDO1 protein in HEK293 cells with transient transfection were used to construct the specific IDO1 cell based screening system. Finally, the effect of the compound on kynurenine and tryptophan in mouse plasma was determined by LC/MS/MS method on C57 mice, which could further verify the inhibitory effect of the selected compounds on IDO1 in vivo. The established and optimized enzyme-cell based screening model in this study can efficiently and effectively obtain IDO1 inhibitors in vitro, which lays a good foundation for the rapid development of clinical drugs. Procedures for animal study were performed with approval of the Animal Care and Use Committee of the Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College.
With the significant breakthrough that programmed cell death 1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody drugs achieved promising clinical outcomes across various tumor types, immunotherapy targeting immune checkpoint has been considered a promising way to treat cancer. However, most recently studies suggest that the hyperprogressive disease occurred frequently during the therapy of using PD-1/PD-L1 antibody drugs and has become an urgent problem to be solved. In this review, we summarize the progress and potential reasons of hyperprogressive disease caused by PD-1/PD-L1 blockade, and further discuss its application based on the rational use of biomarkers for searching the benefit patients.
Calcium-binding protein S100A9 is closely related to inflammation and tumor invasion, and is one of the specific markers of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC). In this study, a recombinant polypeptide vaccine CTB-S100A9 targeting mouse calcium-binding protein S100A9 was constructed by fusion cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) with S100A9 gene. The CTB-S100A9 fusion protein was expressed in E coli. and purified by Ni+ affinity chromatography. Vaccinate the purified recombinant CTB-S100A9 protein supplemented with aluminum hydroxide adjuvant can break the autoimmune tolerance and produce high titer of S100A9 antibody in mice. Moreover, the S100A9 antibody produced by CTB-S100A9 vaccination is more specific and does not cross-react with S100A8. In the mouse 4T1 breast cancer model, CTB-S100A9 vaccination not only has significant tumor prevention effects, but also has significant tumor therapeutic effects. In addition, CTB-S100A9 significantly inhibited lung metastasis in 4T1 mice breast cancer model. Further analysis by flow cytometry showed that CTB-S100A9 vaccination can significantly reduce the tumor induced Treg cells and granulocyte-derived MDSC in 4T1 mice model, and reverse the tumor immunosuppressive environment, thereby promote the anti-tumor efficacy. The animal experiments in this study were carried out under the animal care guidelines approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine. This study shows that CTB-S100A9 is a good recombinant vaccine that targets the tumor immune-suppression environment and has great potential for the future clinical application.
Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) was found in an abnormal constitutively active status in certain cancer tissues, and under these circumstances the interruption of STAT3 signaling pathway was proposed with the potential anti-cancer efficacy. In this study, our previous reported STAT3 inhibitor Bt354 can inhibit tumor growth in DU145 xenograft mice without affecting body weight. In groups treated with Bt354, the inhibition rate of tumor weight was 58.8%, 62.7% and 73.5% in 10, 20, 40 mg·kg-1 group, respectively. Particularly, the number of Ki 67 positive cells in the tumor sections was significantly decreased in Bt354 groups. Furthermore, Bt354 inhibited the nuclear translocation of STAT3 and consequently induced cell growth inhibition, apoptosis in DU145 cells. These findings suggest that Bt354 may be a potent anticancer agent for STAT3 activated prostate cancer cells. Procedures for animal study were performed with approval of the Animal Care and Use Committee of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College.
Glioma is the most common primary intracranial tumor, among which glioblastoma (GBM) is the most malignant subtype. Because of its high heterogeneity and invasiveness, GBM can't be completely removed by surgical resection and is also resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Even after a standard therapy, the median survival time is only 14.6 months, the five-year survival rate is less than 10%, and the relapse of GBM is common. Immunotherapy, a new treatment paradigm, treats cancer through regulating the autologous immune system and the tumor microenvironment. As a promising method to improve the prognosis of GBM, immunotherapy has attracted more and more attention. This paper gives a review to the difficulty, the mainly existing strategies and the bottlenecks in GBM immunotherapy, aiming at providing new direction to improve the prognosis of GBM patients.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors, which is charac-terized by complex pathogenesis, inconspicuous early symptoms, rapid progress and poor prognosis. Immuno-therapy and targeted therapy are important methods to treat advanced and metastatic liver cancer in recent years. With the FDA's approval of sorafenib and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors and programmed cell death protein 1 and cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 immune checkpoint inhibitors for the treatment of liver cancer, great progress has been made in single-agent therapy and combination therapy, bringing a new turning point for the improvement of survival rate of patients with advanced liver cancer. However, the mechanism of immunotherapy and drug resistance is still unclear, and its clinical application combined with targeted and other therapies is still under research, which needs to be further explored by researchers. In this paper, the clinical research progress of immunotherapy combined with other therapies in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma was reviewed, in order to grasp the current development trend of the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma and provide reference for the further development direction of immunotherapy.
non-coding RNA (ncRNA) is a kind of non-protein coding RNA, which plays a vital role in the initiation and development of tumor. The immune system also exhibits more complex function in tumor development. It can not only inhibit the development of tumor, but also create conditions for tumor growth. As an important means of tumor therapy, tumor immunotherapy can be regulated by non-coding RNA to achieve the goal of treatment. This article summarizes the regulation of tumor immunity by non-coding RNA.
Chemotherapy resistance is the main cause of poor prognosis in patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Pyroptosis is one of the anti-tumor mechanisms by chemotherapy drugs. Studies have shown that DEP-domain containing mTOR-interacting protein (DEPTOR) is correlated with sorafenib and gefitnib resistance, which is discovered as a naturally negative regulator of mammalian/mechanistic target of rapamicin (mTOR). In this study, DEPTOR knockdown (shDEPTOR) lentivirus was used to establish the stable DEPTOR knockdown ESCC cell lines. The results showed that knockdown of DEPTOR reduced chemosensitivity to cisplatin in ESCC cells in vitro. The lower expression of DEPTOR caused less extensive morphological characteristics of pyroptosis than that was observed in sh-con cells with the treatment of cisplain. Further studies showed that knockdown of DEPTOR induced downregulation of Caspase-1 expression and reduction of Caspase-1 activation, thereby inhibiting the activation of the classical pathway of pyroptosis. This paper demonstrates that DEPTOR can improve cisplatin chemosensitivity in ESCC cells via inducing Caspase-1-mediated pyroptosis.