Xenogeneic cell therapy provides a novel potential therapeutic option for cancers by restoring tissue function, repairing cancer wound and reviving anti-tumor immune responses

Chi-Ping Huang,Chi-Cheng Chen,Chih-Rong Shyr

doi:10.1186/s12935-018-0501-7

Abstract

Conventional cancer treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy, not only destruct tumors, but also injure the normal tissues, resulting in limited efficacy. Recent advances in cancer therapy have aimed at changing the host milieu of cancer against its development and progression by targeting tumor microenvironment and host immune system to eradicate tumors. To the host body, tumors arise in tissues. They impair the normal healthy tissue physiological function, become chronically inflamed and develop non-healing or overhealing wounds as well as drive immuno-suppressive activity to escape immunity attack. Therefore, the rational therapeutic strategies for cancers should treat both the tumors and the host body for the best efficacy to turn the deadly malignant disease to a manageable one. Xenogeneic cell therapy (i.e. cellular xenotransplantation) using cells from non-human source animals such as pigs has shown promising results in animal studies and clinical xenotransplantation in restoring lost tissue physiological function and repairing the wound. However, the major hurdle of xenogeneic cell therapy is the host immunological barriers that are induced by transplanted xenogeneic cells to reject xenografts. Possibly, the immunological barriers of xenogeneic cells could be used as immunological boosters to activate the host immune system. Here, we hypothesized that because of the biological properties of xenogeneic cells to the recipient humans, the transplantation of xenogeneic cells (i.e. cellular xenotransplantation) into cancer patients’ organs of the same origin with developed tumors may restore the impaired function of organs, repair the wound, reduce chronic inflammation and revive the anti-tumor immunity to achieve beneficial outcome for patients.

Highlights

Current standard treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, effective, come with collateral damages of injuring healthy tissue and causingHuang et al Cancer Cell Int (2018) 18:9 tumor, which comprise a tumor favorable microenvironment [2, 3]
Inhibition of VEGF signaling with anti-angiogenic agents is used to inhibit neo-angiogenesis to repress tumor vasculature in tumor microenvironment and stop tumor growth and survival [4]
The advances of immunotherapy, either immunecheckpoint blockade monoclonal antibody therapy or adoptive cellular therapy have make big breakthrough on cancer treatment with unprecedented responses for advanced-stage cancer patients who fails conventional chemotherapy and targeted therapy [5]. This approach is similar to the anti-tumor microenvironment therapy because, instead of focusing on the strategies that directly eliminate cancer cells, their strategy is to target the changes in the host body, triggered by tumors

Summary

Introduction

Current standard treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, effective, come with collateral damages of injuring healthy tissue and causingHuang et al Cancer Cell Int (2018) 18:9 tumor, which comprise a tumor favorable microenvironment [2, 3]. Porcine hepatocytes into livers of hepatocellular carcinoma patients), which are inflicted by cancers may restore the impaired function of organs damaged by overgrowing cancer cells, repair the wound and reduce chronic inflammation caused by aberrant cancer cells and revive the anti-tumor immune responses suppressed by evading cancer cells.

Results

Conclusion