Objective: To evaluate the in vitro antitumor effect of adenovirus containing cytosine deaminase (CD) and thymine kinase (TK) gene driven by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) promoter (Ad-VEGFp-CDglyTK) on human colorectal cancer LoVo cells.
Methods: The adenoviral vectors Ad-VEGFp-CDglyTK, Ad-CMV-CD, Ad-CMV-TK and Ad-CMV- CDglyTK were transfected into LoVo cells, which were then treated with the prodrugs 5-FC or GCV to observe the plating efficiency and growth inhibition effect and bystander effect of the vectors on LoVo cells.
Results: Compared with the two vectors containing single suicide gene, Ad-VEGFp-CDglyTK showed more remarkable inhibitory effect on the plating efficiency and growth of the tumor cells, and the bystander effect of the fusion suicide gene was much stronger than that produced by single suicide gene. But the LoVo cells infected with Ad-VEGFp-CDglyTK exhibited similar sensitivity to the prodrugs with the cells infected with Ad-CMV-CDglyTK.
Conclusion: Ad-VEGFp-CDglyTK has potent antitumor effect on LoVo cells in vitro, which is comparable with the effect of Ad-CMV-CDglyTK.