Abstract. Previous studies have demonstrated that the conditionally replicative adenovirus Ad5¢24 is a powerful cytolytic agent against glioma selectively affecting cells with a defective p16/Rb/E2F pathway. The p53 protein is also known to be an apoptotic factor for glioma cells. In this study, we examined the simultaneous delivery of the combination of exogenous p53 and Ad5¢24 adenovirus in glioma cells. Infecting cells with low doses of adenovirus p53 and Ad5¢24 resulted in an additive effect on cell death. The cell death induced by both agents was independent of the p53 status of cells. Flow cytometry revealed that the potent anti-tumor effect induced by the mixture of Ad5CMV-p53 and Ad5¢24 adenoviruses was due to a combination of apoptosis and cell lysis. Our results indicate that Ad5CMV-p53 enhances the oncolytic effect of the Ad5¢24 adenovirus, and the combination of adenovirus Ad5¢24 and Ad5CMV-p53 may thus be a potential therapeutic tool for gliomas.
IntroductionMalignant gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors in humans, and highly resistant to all current therapies, including widely investigated approaches to gene therapy. At the molecular level, glioblastomas are highly heterogeneous tumors, as several populations of cells with different gene abnormalities co-exist within a given tumor (1). Secondary glioblastomas that develop from pre-existing low-grade astrocytomas frequently contain p53 mutations (1), and abnormalities of the p16/Rb/E2F pathway are present in most gliomas (2,3).Previous studies have demonstrated that the transfer of exogenous wild-type p53 cDNA causes apoptosis in glioma cells expressing endogenous mutant p53, but not in cells expressing endogenous wild-type p53 (4,5). However, only 50% of gliomas exhibit mutant p53, and the mutant cell population usually constitutes <30% of tumor mass (6).More than 90% of malignant gliomas exhibit abnormalities in the p16/Rb/E2F pathway (7). The adenovirus Ad5¢24 carries a 24-bp deletion in the E1 region corresponding to amino acids 122-129 specific for binding the Rb protein. This virus produces an anti-glioma effect in vitro and in vivo in tumors with altered p16/Rb/E2F pathway (8). The conditionally replicative adenoviruses (e.g. Ad5¢24 and ONYX-15) kill tumor cells selectively, and their replication leads to amplification of their oncolytic potential. Considerable preclinical data support this notion (8)(9)(10)(11). In this study, we tested if the combination of an apoptotic molecule (p53) with an oncolytic adenovirus (Ad5¢24) could have an additive effect on cell death in malignant glioma cells.
Materials and methodsCell lines, adenoviral vectors, and infection conditions. The human glioma cell line U-251 MG was obtained from Dr W.K. Alfred Yung (Department of Neuro-Oncology, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX). U-87 MG was obtained from ATCC (Manassas, VA) and HFK (human kidney fibroblasts) from Dr T. Fotsis (Laboratory of Biological Chemistry, University of Ioannina Medical School, Ioannina, Greece). The conditionally replic...