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Evaluation of tumor-specific promoter activities in melanoma

Gene Therapy volume 12, pages 330–338 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Gene therapy is a novel therapy for melanoma. To date, however, there is still no powerful tumor specific promoter (TSP) to restrict the transgene expression in melanoma cells. In order to define a useful TSP for targeting in the context of melanoma gene therapy, four promoters, the cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2), α-chemokine SDF-1 receptor (CXCR4), epithelial glycoprotein 2 (EGP-2), and survivin, were tested in both established melanoma cell lines and primary melanoma cells. We employed recombinant adenoviral vectors (reAds) each with a candidate TSP (the Cox-2, CXCR4, EGP-2, or survivin), a reporter luciferase gene, and a poly-A signal, all of which were inserted into the E1-deleted region. A reAdGL3Bcytomegalovirus (CMV), containing the CMV promoter and luciferase gene, was used as a positive control to normalize the luciferase activity. Luciferase activity was measured in multiple tumor cell lines and two primary melanoma cell cultures after infection with reAds. Human epithelial melanocytes, HEM, were used as normal control. In contrast to three other promoters, the survivin promoter exhibited the highest activities within both melanoma cell lines and primary melanoma cells, but not in HEMs. Additionally, the survivin promoter exhibited very low activities in major mouse organs including the liver, in vivo. EGP-2 is not active in melanoma; messenger RNA expressions were correlated to promoter activities both in melanoma cell lines and primary cell cultures. Thus, these data suggest that the survivin promoter achieved a ‘tumor-on/liver-off’ profile, and thus represents a potentially useful tumor-specific promoter with applications for transcriptional targeting of Ad vector-based cancer gene therapy or oncolysis to melanoma.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health: RO1CA83821, RO1HL 67962, K12 HD01261-02 (WRHR) 5P50 CA83591 (Ovarian SPORE Developmental Grant). We thank Dr D Dieckmann for primary melanoma cells. DMN was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Division of Human Gene Therapy, The Gene Therapy Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    B Lu, A A Rivera, S Komarova, M Yamamoto, D T Curiel & Z B Zhu

  2. Department of Pathology, Division of Human Gene Therapy, The Gene Therapy Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    B Lu, A A Rivera, S Komarova, M Yamamoto, D T Curiel & Z B Zhu

  3. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    S K Makhija & R D Alvarez

  4. Department of Dermatology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

    D M Nettelbeck & M Wang

  5. Department of Anesthesiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    F Zhou

  6. Department of Therapeutic Gene Modulation, University Center for Pharmacy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

    H J Haisma

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  1. B Lu
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Lu, B., Makhija, S., Nettelbeck, D. et al. Evaluation of tumor-specific promoter activities in melanoma. Gene Ther 12, 330–338 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.gt.3302385

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