Abstract
<div>Abstract<p><b>Purpose:</b> Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is a rapidly progressive malignancy that is highly resistant to current chemotherapeutic modalities and almost uniformly fatal. We show that a novel targeting strategy combining oncolytic adenoviral mutants with the standard cytotoxic treatment, gemcitabine, can markedly improve the anticancer potency.</p><p><b>Experimental Design:</b> Adenoviral mutants with the <i>E1B19K</i> gene deleted with and without <i>E3B</i> gene expression (AdΔE1B19K and <i>dl</i>337 mutants, respectively) were assessed for synergistic interactions in combination with gemcitabine. Cell viability, mechanism of cell death, and antitumor efficacy <i>in vivo</i> were determined in the pancreatic carcinoma cells PT45 and Suit2, normal human bronchial epithelial cells, and in PT45 xenografts.</p><p><b>Results:</b> The ΔE1B19K-deleted mutants synergized with gemcitabine to selectively kill cultured pancreatic cancer cells and xenografts <i>in vivo</i> with no effect in normal cells. The corresponding wild-type virus (Ad5) stimulated drug-induced cell killing to a lesser degree. Gemcitabine blocked replication of all viruses despite the enhanced cell killing activity due to gemcitabine-induced delay in G<sub>1</sub>/S-cell cycle progression, with repression of cyclin E and cdc25A, which was not abrogated by viral E1A-expression. Synergistic cell death occurred through enhancement of gemcitabine-induced apoptosis in the presence of both AdΔE1B19K and <i>dl</i>337 mutants, shown by increased cell membrane fragmentation, caspase-3 activation, and mitochondrial dysfunction.</p><p><b>Conclusions:</b> Our data suggest that oncolytic mutants lacking the antiapoptotic <i>E1B19K</i> gene can improve efficacy of DNA-damaging drugs such as gemcitabine through convergence on cellular apoptosis pathways. These findings imply that less toxic doses than currently practiced in the clinic could efficiently target pancreatic adenocarcinomas when combined with adenoviral mutants.</p></div>
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