Advances of radioiodine therapy of tumor induced by sodium iodide symporter gene

Abstract

As a kind of membrane protein that mainly mediates iodide transport into thyroid follicular cells, sodium iodide symporter (NIS) plays a key role in radioiodine therapy of both thyroid and other cancers. Studies show that decreased NIS expression level or intracellular localization in thyroid carcinomas lead to low iodine uptake. So NIS gene therapy is a new method to overcome this problem. To be therapeutically effective, radioiodine has to be remained in the tumor cells for sufficient long time; this is still a problem which reduces therapeutic effect. It should increase iodide retention and decrease iodide efflux in tumor cells to optimize therapeutic scheme. This article reviews the studies on advances of radioiodine therapy of tumor induced by sodium iodide symporter gene. Key words: Iodine radioisotopes ; Thyroid neoplasms ; Gene therapy ; Sodium iodide symporter ;