In vitro Observation on the Immunological Characters of IFN-? Induced, IL-2 Gene-Modified Human Primary Fibroblasts / 中国肿瘤生物治疗杂志

ABSTRACT

It was an important strategy in cancer gene therapy that transferring foreign gene to fibroblasts to express synthetic protein to exert antitumor effect. But most of studies regarded the foreign gene-modified fibroblasts as a by-stander, only a delivery source of synthetic protein, and neglected their irnmunological characters. In this paper, human primary dermal fibroblasts were modified by human IL-2 gene by retrovirus vector and induced by human IFN-?. The results showed that the MHC- I , MHC- II and CD40 expression on the surface of IFN-? induced fibroblasts were up-regulated significantly in comparison with those of non-induced cells. The IL-2, IL-1, IL-6 secretion were detected as a increased level in supematants of the IFN-?-induced, IL-2 gene modified fibroblasts. Because these molecules and cytokines play important roles in antigen presentation and effector activation, it can be inferred that the IFN-y induced, IL-2 gene modified fibroblasts could be used as antigen presenting cells in addition to delivery cells to activated the effector cells.