Transcription Factor Genes Kill Tumors

Cancer researchers working with a rodent model for prostate cancer have used an adenovirus vector to implant the genes for two transcription factors, PEA-3 and AP-1, which selectively activated a tumor-suppressing gene and eradicated the cancer cells without harming normal tissues.

Investigators at Columbia University Medical Center (New York, NY, USA) created an adenovirus vector containing the genes for the transcription factors PEA-3 and AP-1. These factors were known to trigger the conversion of inactive PROM-PEG cancer protein into active PEG-3 (progression-elevated gene-3), an apoptosis initiator. PROM-PEG is generally found in abundance in cancer cells but is not present in normal cells.

Results published in the January 25, 2005, issue of the Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences revealed that tumors in mice receiving the vector died while normal tissues were not affected. The PEA-1/AP-1 combination was also found to act on melanoma, ovarian, breast, and glioma (brain) tumors.

"What is exciting is we may now be able to design a therapy that will seek out and destroy only cancer cells,” said senior author, Dr. Paul B. Fisher, professor of clinical pathology at Columbia University Medical Center. "We hope it will be particularly powerful in eradicating metastases that we cannot see and that cannot be eliminated by surgery or radiation. Gene therapy, especially for cancer, is really starting to make a comeback.”






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