Therapeutic Effect of Targeted Hyaluronan Binding Peptide on Neurofibromatosis

Abstract

Abstract : To test our hypothesis that the HA binding peptide may be a new anti-neurofibromatosis agent via inducing apoptosis, we have proposed to focus on three aims: 1) To examine the anti-tumor effect of synthetic HA binding peptide on malignant neurofibromatosis cells; 2) To examine the anti-tumor effect of genetically expressed targeted HA binding peptide; 3) To examine the effect of targeted HA binding peptide on molecules involved in apoptosis. In the past first year, we have finished the following tasks: 1) chemical synthesis HA binding peptide and control peptide in a large scale; 2) identification of its HA binding activity; 3) characterization of anti-tumor activity of HA binding peptide; 4) study of the effect of HA binding peptide on molecules involved in cell programmed death; and 5) construction of mammalian expression vector for HA binding peptide. The results of study indicated that: 1) large scale synthesized HA binding peptide did possess HA binding activity; 2) synthetic HA binding peptide exerted an anti-tumor effect of on ST88-14 NF1 cells; 3) HA binding peptide could bind to Bcl-2/Bcl-x(sub L), the critical anti-apoptosis factors, which may be one of the mechanisms by which HA binding peptide inhibits ST88-14 NF1 cells; 4) the cells transfected with expression vector carrying cDNA of HA binding peptide could express this peptide as evidenced by Western blotting. In the next year, we will use the synthetic HA binding peptide and newly constructed expression vector to test if the in vitro anti-tumor effect of HA binding peptide can be translated in vivo against the cell growth of neurofibromatosis.