Gene Therapy Slows Bladder Cancer in Mouse Model

A gene therapy technique was found to be the most effective of three methods tested for the treatment of bladder cancer in a mouse model.

Investigators at Tulane University (New Orleans, LA, USA) compared chemotherapy procedures based either on Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) or on celecoxib with gene therapy. The gene therapy technique involved extracting a gene (th bve cyclooxygenase-2 or Cox-2 promoter gene) from the cancer cells, extracting the DNA message from the gene, and replacing it with a code that triggered apoptosis.

Results published in the September 17, 2010, online edition of the journal Cancer Gene Therapy revealed that gene therapy caused a reduction in tumor mass more than six times greater than that obtained by use of the drug celecoxib. This was at least partially due to the ability of the transplanted gene to bypass efficiently the bladder permeability barrier.

"We sort of trick the cancer cell,” said senior author Dr. W. T. Godbey, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Tulane University. "When a cell expresses a gene it does not look at the message; if it recognizes the promoter it transcribes the message. Here the message is to express key proteins that cause self-destruction. Only cancer cells have the specific protein that will bind to this promoter; normal healthy cells do not.”

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