Identification of factors important for the success of suicide gene therapy after a comparative study of Varicella zoster and Herpes simplex viral thymidine kinases efficacy on breast cancer cells.

One of the most frequently studied therapeutic strategies in the field of suicide gene therapy is based on the expression by tumor cells of the Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene (HSVtk) followed by a ganciclovir (GCV) treatment. In order to investigate the potential of other enzyme/prodrug strategies, we studied in vitro and in vivo the ability of the Varicella zoster virus thymidine kinase gene (VZVtk) to act as a suicide gene and to kill non-transduced bystander cells, and compared this activity to that of its HSV counterpart. Four different antiviral compounds were tested as prodrugs. Our comparative study demonstrates the superiority of the HSVtk/GCV system among the different combinations tested and underlines the importance of both the tumor cell type and the prodrug in the success of a prodrug/suicide gene strategy.

Down-regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor by tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2: effect on in vivo mammary tumor growth and angiogenesis.

The tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-2 (TIMP-2) has at least two independent functions, i.e., regulation of matrix metalloproteinases and growth promoting activity. We investigated the effects of TIMP-2 overexpression, induced by retroviral mediated gene transfer, on the in vivo development of mammary tumors in syngeneic mice inoculated with EF43.fgf-4 cells. The EF43.fgf-4 cells established by stably infecting the normal mouse mammary EF43 cells with a retroviral expression vector for the fgf-4 oncogene, are highly tumorigenic and overproduce vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Despite a promotion of the in vitro growth rate of EF43.fgf-4 cells overexpressing timp-2, the in vivo tumor growth was delayed. At day 17 post-cell injection, the volume of tumor derived from TIMP-2-overexpressing cells was reduced by 80% as compared with that obtained with control cells. Overexpression of TIMP-2 was associated with a down-regulation of VEGF expression in vitro and in vivo, a reduction of vessel size, density, and blood supply in the induced tumors. In addition, TIMP-2 completely inhibited the angiogenic activity of EF43.fgf-4 cell-conditioned medium in vitro using a rat aortic ring model. Our findings suggest that overexpression of TIMP-2 delays growth and angiogenesis of mammary carcinoma in vivo and that down-regulation of VEGF expression may play an important role in this TIMP-2-mediated antitumoral and antiangiogenic effects. Finally the in vivo delivery of TIMP-2, as assessed by i.v. injection of recombinant adenoviruses vectors, significantly reduced the growth of the EF43.fgf-4-induced tumors. This effect of TIMP-2 was shown to be equally comparable with that of angiostatin, a known potent inhibitor of angiogenesis.

The role of cellular- and prodrug-associated factors in the bystander effect induced by the Varicella zoster and Herpes simplex viral thymidine kinases in suicide gene therapy.

To investigate the factors influencing the bystander effect--a key element in the efficacy of suicide gene therapy against cancer--we compared the effect triggered by four extremely efficient gene/prodrug combinations, i.e., VZVtk/BVDU, the thymidine kinase of Varicella zoster virus associated with (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine; VZVtk/BVaraU, the same enzyme associated with (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-1-beta-D-arabinofuranosyluracil; HSVtk/BVDU, the association of the Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase with BVDU; and the classical HSVtk/GCV (ganciclovir) paradigm. The cells used, the human MDA-MB-435 breast cancer, and the rat 9L glioblastoma lines were equally sensitive in vitro to these four associations. In both cell types, the combinations involving pyrimidine analogues (BVDU, BVaraU) displayed a smaller bystander killing than the combination involving the purine analogue (GCV). In addition, the bystander effect induced by all the tk/prodrug systems was reduced in MDA-MB-435 cells in comparison to 9L cells; albeit, the viral kinases were produced at a higher level in the breast cancer cells. All systems induced apoptotic death in the two cell types, but the MDA-MB-435 cells, deprived of connexin 43, were noncommunicating in striking contrast with the 9L cells. That functional gap junctions have to be increased in order to improve the breast cancer cell response to suicide gene therapy was demonstrated by transducing the Cx43 gene: this modification enhanced the bystander effect associated in vitro with GCV treatment and, by itself, decreased the tumorigenicity of the untreated cells. However, the noncommunicating MDA-MB-435 cells triggered a significant bystander effect both in vitro and in vivo with the HSVtk/GCV system, showing that communication through gap junctions is not the only mechanism involved.

Comparative in vitro and in vivo cytotoxic activity of (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (BVDU) and its arabinosyl derivative, (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-1-beta-D-arabinofuranosyluracil (BVaraU), against tumor cells expressing either the Varicella zoster or the Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase.

The inhibitory effects of (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (BVDU) and its arabinosyl derivative (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-1-beta-D-arabinofuranosyluracil (BVaraU) on the growth of both MDA-MB-435 human breast carcinoma and 9L rat gliosarcoma cells expressing the thymidine kinase (tk)-encoding gene of the Varicella zoster virus (VZV) or the Herpes simplex virus (HSV) were evaluated. In vitro, BVDU and BVaraU effectively killed both cell types expressing VZVtk, with 50% inhibitory concentration values ranging from 0.06 to 0.4 microM, whereas ganciclovir (GCV) lacked activity. On HSVtk+ cells, BVDU had high cytotoxic activity, with 50% inhibitory concentration values that were similar to those of GCV, whereas BVaraU was inactive. In vivo, BVDU applied intraperitoneally caused a 50% tumor growth inhibition in nude mice inoculated subcutaneously with VZVtk+ as well as HSVtk+ mammary tumor cells. In mice and at variance with the in vitro results, BVaraU had very little activity against the VZVtk+ mammary cells; GCV had the highest activity on the HSVtk+ cells, resulting in a 50% eradication of the tumors. With the 9L rat gliosarcoma model, the VZVtk/BVDU system completely failed to inhibit the development of VZVtk+ glioma tumors induced subcutaneously in syngeneic rats, although BVDU had a similar 45-minute half-life in both rats and mice. Factors other than degradation of the prodrug and related to the mode of action of these analogs are possibly involved in the observed discrepancies between the in vitro and in vivo results.

Potential of Varicella zoster virus thymidine kinase as a suicide gene in breast cancer cells.

To investigate the potential of the thymidine kinase gene from Varicella zoster virus (VZVtk) to act as a suicide gene, VZVtk was transferred via a dicistronic retroviral construct into MCF7, T-47D and MDA-MB-435 human breast cancer cells. The cytotoxicity of antiviral drugs was then evaluated in vitro on the wild-type and transduced cells. Acyclovir and ganciclovir did not show any selective toxicity for the modified cells. In contrast, (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (BVDU) was extremely toxic for the VZVtk expressing cells, with IC50 values of 0.6 microM, 0.1 microM and 0.06 microM for MCF7, T-47D and MDA-MB-435 cells, respectively. The selectivity index of BVDU (ie the IC50 value ratio of the wild-type to the VZVtk cells) was 400 for MCF7, 750 for T-47D and 2000 for MDA-MB-435 cells. To test the system in vivo, VZVtk carrying MDA-MB-435 cells were inoculated subcutaneously into nude mice. An intraperitoneal treatment with BVDU administered at the emergence of the tumors, led to a prolonged arrest of the tumor growth and a reduced tumor mass. This effect was BVDU dose-dependent. No bystander effect of BVDU killing could be demonstrated in vitro on mixed populations of VZVtk positive and negative MDA-MB-435 cells. However, an important bystander effect was observed in identical experiments performed on 9L rat gliosarcoma cells infected with the VZVtk-carrying vector. These results demonstrate the efficiency of VZVtk as a suicide gene when BVDU is used as prodrug. The bystander effect measured in vitro, depends however on the tumoral cell type used.