Bioluminescence in cancer research - Applications and challenges

Mali, Shrikant B.

doi:10.1016/j.oor.2023.100127

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 25 publications

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“…Imageable reporters, such as Luc have been widely applied in in vivo cancer studies and are essential for accurately tracking cancer development and progression. These models can demonstrate in real-time the antitumor and antimetastatic response of novel therapeutic agents against malignancies by BLI over time and are thus valuable tools in preclinical research 13 , 23 , 24 . In this study, we demonstrate for the first time in PDAC that the expression of luciferase in murine KPC-Luc cells, a widely used reporter for PDAC growth in mouse models, induces a potent immune response between day 9 and 13 after orthotopic tumor cell implantation in immunocompetent mice, that results in permanent tumor regression up to 70 days.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

KPC-luciferase-expressing cells elicit an anti-tumor immune response in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer

Ferrari,

Ramos-Gomes,

Alves

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Mouse models for the study of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are well-established and representative of many key features observed in human PDAC. To monitor tumor growth, cancer cells that are implanted in mice are often transfected with reporter genes, such as firefly luciferase (Luc), enabling in vivo optical imaging over time. Since Luc can induce an immune response, we aimed to evaluate whether the expression of Luc could affect the growth of KPC tumors in mice by inducing immunogenicity. Although both cell lines, KPC and Luc transduced KPC (KPC-Luc), had the same proliferation rate, KPC-Luc tumors had significantly smaller sizes or were absent 13 days after orthotopic cell implantation, compared to KPC tumors. This coincided with the loss of bioluminescence signal over the tumor region. Immunophenotyping of blood and spleen from KPC-Luc tumor-bearing mice showed a decreased number of macrophages and CD4+ T cells, and an increased accumulation of natural killer (NK) cells in comparison to KPC tumor mice. Higher infiltration of CD8+ T cells was found in KPC-Luc tumors than in their controls. Moreover, the immune response against Luc peptide was stronger in splenocytes from mice implanted with KPC-Luc cells compared to those isolated from KPC wild-type mice, indicating increased immunogenicity elicited by the presence of Luc in the PDAC tumor cells. These results must be considered when evaluating the efficacy of anti-cancer therapies including immunotherapies in immunocompetent PDAC or other cancer mouse models that use Luc as a reporter for bioluminescence imaging.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%