Stem cell-assisted enzyme/prodrug therapy makes drug-resistant ovarian cancer cells vulnerable to natural killer cells through upregulation of NKG2D ligands.
Autor: | Li G; Department of Pharmaceutics, Rutgers University, 160 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854-8020, USA., Nikkhoi SK; Department of Pharmaceutics, Rutgers University, 160 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854-8020, USA., Hatefi A; Department of Pharmaceutics, Rutgers University, 160 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854-8020, USA. ahatefi@pharmacy.rutgers.edu.; Cancer Pharmacology Program, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, USA. ahatefi@pharmacy.rutgers.edu. |
---|---|
Jazyk: | angličtina |
Zdroj: | Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) [Med Oncol] 2023 Mar 02; Vol. 40 (4), pp. 110. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Mar 02. |
DOI: | 10.1007/s12032-023-01975-1 |
Abstrakt: | Cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) are believed to be responsible for cancer recurrence and metastasis. Therefore, a therapeutic approach is needed to eliminate both rapidly proliferating differentiated cancer cells and slow-growing drug-resistant CSCs. Using established ovarian cancer cells lines as well as ovarian cancer cells isolated from a patient with high-grade drug-resistant ovarian carcinoma, we demonstrate that ovarian CSCs consistently express lower levels of NKG2D ligands (MICA/B and ULBPs) on their surfaces, a mechanism by which they evade natural killer (NK) cells' surveillance. Here, we discovered that exposure of ovarian cancer (OC) cells to SN-38 followed by 5-FU not only acts synergistically to kill the OC cells, but also makes the CSCs vulnerable to NK92 cells through upregulation of NKG2D ligands. Since systemic administration of these two drugs is marred by intolerance and instability, we engineered and isolated an adipose-derived stem cell (ASC) clone, which stably expresses carboxylesterase-2 and yeast cytosine deaminase enzymes to convert irinotecan and 5-FC prodrugs into SN-38 and 5-FU cytotoxic drugs, respectively. Co-incubation of ASCs and prodrugs with drug-resistant OC cells not only led to the death of the drug-resistant OC cells but also made them significantly vulnerable to NK92 cells. This study provides proof of principle for a combined ASC-directed targeted chemotherapy with NK92-assisted immunotherapy to eradicate drug-resistant OC cells. (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.) |
Databáze: | MEDLINE |
Externí odkaz: |