Abstract
BackgroundInterleukin-24 (IL-24) is a therapeutic gene for melanoma, which can induce melanoma cell apoptosis. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) show promise as a carrier to delivery anti-cancer factors to tumor tissues. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are an alternative source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). We previously developed a novel non-viral gene targeting vector to target IL-24 to human iPSCs. This study aims to investigate whether MSCs derived from the iPSCs with the site-specific integration of IL-24 can inhibit the growth of melanoma in a tumor-bearing mouse model via retro-orbital injection.MethodsIL-24-iPSCs were differentiated into IL-24-iMSCs in vitro, of which cellular properties and potential of differentiation were characterized. The expression of IL-24 in the IL-24-iMSCs was measured by qRT-PCR, Western Blotting, and ELISA analysis. IL-24-iMSCs were transplanted into the melanoma-bearing mice by retro-orbital intravenous injection. The inhibitory effect of IL-24-iMSCs on the melanoma cells was investigated in a co-culture system and tumor-bearing mice. The molecular mechanisms underlying IL-24-iMSCs in exerting anti-tumor effect were also explored.ResultsiPSCs-derived iMSCs have the typical profile of cell surface markers of MSCs and have the ability to differentiate into osteoblasts, adipocytes, and chondroblasts. The expression level of IL-24 in IL-24-iMSCs reached 95.39 ng/106 cells/24 h, which is significantly higher than that in iMSCs, inducing melanoma cells apoptosis more effectively in vitro compared with iMSCs. IL-24-iMSCs exerted a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of melanoma in subcutaneous mouse models, in which the migration of IL-24-iMSCs to tumor tissue was confirmed. Additionally, increased expression of Bax and Cleaved caspase-3 and down-regulation of Bcl-2 were observed in the mice treated with IL-24-iMSCs.ConclusionMSCs derived from iPSCs with the integration of IL-24 at rDNA locus can inhibit the growth of melanoma in tumor-bearing mouse models when administrated via retro-orbital injection.
Highlights
Interleukin-24 (IL-24) is a therapeutic gene for melanoma, which can induce melanoma cell apoptosis
Differentiation of Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into induced mesenchymal stem cell (iMSC) In the previous study, we developed a novel non-viral rDNA region targeting vector, minipHrn-IL-24, by which IL-24 was targeted into the ribosomal DNA locus of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) (Fig. 1a) In this study, we differentiated iPSCs with and without the integration of IL-24 into Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), named IL24-iMSCs and iMSCs, respectively
Analysis of flow cytometry showed that the apoptosis rate of B16-F10 cells co-cultured with IL-24-iMSCs was 28%, whereas the apoptosis rate of B16-F10 cells cocultured with iMSCs was 7% (Fig. 3a, b). in addition, we detected higher expression of cleaved PARP and cleaved Caspase-3 in group of B16-F10 cells co-cultured with IL-24-iMSCs compared to either group of B16-F10 cells alone or B16-F10 cells co-cultured with iMSCs (Fig. 3c, d). These results show that both IL-24-iMSCs and iMSCs can induce melanoma cell apoptosis in vitro, and that IL24-iMSCs are more effective than iMSCs
Summary
Interleukin-24 (IL-24) is a therapeutic gene for melanoma, which can induce melanoma cell apoptosis. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) show promise as a carrier to delivery anti-cancer factors to tumor tissues. A highly malignant skin tumor, is the main reason for death in skin cancer, 287,723 new melanoma cases occurred globally in 2018 [1]. For patients with melanoma metastasis, treatment of immunotherapy [2,3,4], Wu et al Cancer Cell Int (2020) 20:33 biotherapy [5], radiation therapy [6] or chemotherapy [7,8,9,10,11,12,13] is used to improve patient survival.
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