Deleted in liver cancer (DLC1) is a candidate tumor suppressor gene recently isolated from human hepatocellular carcinoma. Structurally, DLC1 protein contains a conserved GTPase-activating protein for Rho family protein (RhoGAP) domain, which has been thought to regulate the activity of Rho family proteins. Previous studies indicated that DLC1 was frequently inactivated in cancer cells. In the present study, we aimed to characterize the tumor suppressor roles of DLC1 in hepatocellular carcinoma. We showed that DLC1 significantly inhibited cell proliferation, anchorage-independent growth, and in vivo tumorigenicity when stably expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Moreover, DLC1 expression greatly reduced the motility and invasiveness of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. With RhoGAP-deficient DLC1 mutant (DLC1-K714E), we showed that the RhoGAP activity was essential for DLC1-mediated tumor suppressor function. Furthermore, the 292-to 648-amino acid region and the steroidogenic acute regulatory related lipid transfer domain played an auxiliary role to RhoGAP and tumor suppressor function of DLC1. Taken together, our findings showed that DLC1 functions as a tumor suppressor in hepatocellular carcinoma and provide the first evidence to support the hypothesis that DLC1 suppresses cancer cell growth by negatively regulating the activity of Rho proteins. (Cancer Res 2005; 65(19): 8861-8)

Recent identification of cancer stem cells in medulloblastoma (MB) and high-grade glioma has stimulated an urgent need for animal models that will not only replicate the biology of these tumors, but also preserve their cancer stem cell pool. We hypothesize that direct injection of fresh surgical specimen of MB and high-grade glioma tissues into anatomically equivalent locations in immune-deficient mouse brains will facilitate the formation of clinically accurate xenograft tumors by allowing brain tumor stem cells, together with their non-stem tumor and stromal cells, to grow in a microenvironment that is the closest to human brains. Eight of the 14 MBs (57.1%) and two of the three high-grade gliomas (66.7%) in this study developed transplantable (up to 12 passages) xenografts in mouse cerebellum and cerebrum, respectively. These xenografts are patient specific, replicating the histopathologic, immunophenotypic, invasive/metastatic, and major genetic (analyzed with 10K single nucleotide polymorphism array) abnormalities of the original tumors. The xenograft tumor cells have also been successfully cryopreserved for long-term preservation of tumorigenicity, ensuring a sustained supply of the animal models. More importantly, the CD133 ؉ tumor cells, ranging from 0.2%-10.4%, were preserved in all the xenograft models following repeated orthotopic subtransplantations in vivo. The isolated CD133؉ tumor cells formed neurospheres and displayed multi-lineage differentiation capabilities in vitro. In summary, our study demonstrates that direct orthotopic transplantation of fresh primary tumor cells is a powerful approach in developing novel clinical relevant animal models that can reliably preserve CD133 ؉ tumor cell pools even during serial in vivo subtransplantations. STEM

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is expressed by the majority of human osteosarcomas and is a risk factor for poor outcome. Unlike breast cancer, osteosarcoma cells express HER2 at too low, a level for patients to benefit from HER2 monoclonal antibodies. We reasoned that this limitation might be overcome by genetically modifying T cells with HER2-specific chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), because even a low frequency of receptor engagement could be sufficient to induce effector cell killing of the tumor. HER2-specific T cells were generated by retroviral transduction with a HER2-specific CAR containing a CD28.zeta signaling domain. HER2-specific T cells recognized HER2-positive osteosarcoma cells as judged by their ability to proliferate, produce immunostimulatory T helper 1 cytokines, and kill HER2-positive osteosarcoma cell lines in vitro. The adoptive transfer of HER2-specific T cells caused regression of established osteosarcoma xenografts in locoregional as well as metastatic mouse models. In contrast, delivery of nontransduced (NT) T cells did not change the tumor growth pattern. Genetic modification of T cells with CARs specific for target antigens, expressed at too low a level to be effectively recognized by monoclonal antibodies, may allow immunotherapy to be more broadly applicable for human cancer therapy.