Abstract
Combination therapies for the treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma have been studied extensively and represent a synergistic approach with better outcomes than monotherapy. In this study, a novel combination therapy was investigated using gold nanoparticles (GNP) conjugated to programmed cell death protein ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibodies and nonthermal plasma (NTP). The present study describes the effectiveness of NTP using PD-L1 antibody conjugated to GNP in PD-L1 expressing SCC-25 cells, an oral squamous cell carcinoma line. Immunocytochemistry revealed higher levels of PD-L1 expression and an increase in the selective uptake of PD-L1 antibody + GNP on SCC-25 cells compared to HaCaT cells. In addition, cell viability analyses confirmed higher levels of cell death of SCC-25 cells after treatment with PD-L1 antibody, GNP, and NTP compared to HaCaT cells. Among the experimental groups, the highest cell death was observed upon treatment with PD-L1 antibody + GNP + NTP. Following the Western blot analysis and immunofluorescence staining, the expression of apoptosis-related proteins was found to increase after treatment with PD-L1 antibody + GNP + NTP among the other experimental groups. In conclusion, the treatment of SCC-25 cells with PD-L1 antibody + GNP + NTP significantly increased the number of dead cells compared to other experimental groups. The results of this in vitro study confirmed the therapeutic effects of PD-L1 antibody + GNP + NTP treatment on oral squamous cell carcinoma.
Highlights
Despite the significant advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment over the past 50 years, the prognosis of oral cancer has not improved
To confirm that PD-L1 is a selective marker for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cells, the expression of PD-L1 in SCC and HaCaT cells was confirmed by Western blotting
Upon treatment with a combination of gold nanoparticles (GNP) + nonthermal plasma (NTP) and PD-L1 ab + GNP + NTP, higher levels of red cells were observed in SCC-25 cells compared to HaCaT cells (Figure 5)
Summary
Despite the significant advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment over the past 50 years, the prognosis of oral cancer has not improved. Cytotoxic chemotherapy and radiation therapy inevitably sacrifice normal cell and may cause side effects such as vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, hair loss, trismus, and inflammation [3]. To reduce these side effects, studies are actively being conducted with the aim of developing treatments that act solely on cancer cells. MAb against cancer cell-specific antigens have been proposed as alternatives to cancer-selective treatment. Cancer cell-specific antibodies continue to show beneficial effects when used in cancer treatments. Since these antibodies bind to the surfaces of cancer cells, they show clinical potentials of cancer cell selectivity that are differentiated from conventional chemotherapy
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