HGG-27. ANTI-CANCER POTENTIAL OF ARGINASE FOR HIGH-GRADE GLIOMA IN VITRO & IN-VIVO

BACKGROUND

High-grade glioma is currently incurable. It was reported that glioma may be auxotrophic to arginine due to the lack of urea cycle genes expressions, suggesting arginase may be a potential agent for high grade glioma. AIM: We investigated the efficacy of pegylated arginase I (pegArg-I) or in combination with other anti-cancer drugs for high-grade glioma in vitro and in vivo.

METHODS

4 high-grade glioma cell lines (U87, U373, U138, D54) were treated with pegArg-I in vitro. The molecular mechanism of pegArg-I-induced cytotoxicity was tested in U87. The ultra-morphological changes of pegArg-I-treated U87 was investigated by both scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Orthotopic glioma xenograft model with luciferase-transfected U87 cell line was tested for anti-cancer efficacy of peg-Arg I in vivo.

RESULTS

We showed that pegArg-I induced significant cell death in all 4 cell lines in vitro. Temozolomide, difluoromethyornithine and chloroquine (CQ) were then tested together with pegArg-I in U87 in vitro. We found that only CQ showed additive effect with pegArg-I against glioma in vitro. Such additive cytotoxic effect may be associated with enhanced autophagy and necrosis as shown in transmission electron microscopy and autophagy markers’ expression by Western blotting. PegArg-I prolonged the survival of glioma mice, suggesting its possible anti-glioma efficacy. However, CQ+pegArg-I didn’t show further significant anti-cancer efficacy in vivo.

CONCLUSION

PegArg-I may be useful in slowing the progression of glioma, but additional drug candidate which works synergistically with pegArg-I remains to be explored.

[An anti-tumor research of recombinant phage vaccine expressed xenogenic EGFR]

A recombinant phage vaccine expressing EGFR on it's capsid was constructed and used to study the anti-tumor effect. The T7 phage display system was applied to display seven xenogenic (human, chicken) epidermal growth factor receptor extracellular domain fragments. The EGFR fragment was expressed as fused protein with 10B capsid on the surface of T7 phage. The T7-EGFR phage vaccines were injected into C57BL/6J mice, and then Lewis lung cancer cells were inoculated after 4 weeks immunization. The tumor tissue was excised and weighed after 10 days to evaluate the anti-tumor effect of each experimental group. The EGFR expression of the phage vaccine was verified by western-blot analysis. The A431 cells with high expressed EGFR was used to detect the anti-EGFR antibody by flow cytometry analysis. The results showed that the A431 cell can react with the serum obtained from the mice after three-week immunization. The experimental results confirmed that special EGFR antibody could be induced by the T7-EGFR phage vaccine. The T7-EGFR phage vaccine can elicit endogenous special EGFR antibody in mice and is capable of suppressing the tumor proliferation and retarding the growth of Lewis lung cancer. This research can be used to develop an anti-tumor vaccine for the target-therapy of EGFR(+) tumor.