Epigenetic silencing of CREB3L1 by DNA methylation is associated with high-grade metastatic breast cancers with poor prognosis and is prevalent in triple negative breast cancers.

Background: CREB3L1 (cAMP-responsive element-binding protein 3-like protein 1), a member of the unfolded protein response, has recently been identified as a metastasis suppressor in both breast and bladder cancer.

Methods: Quantitative real time PCR (qPCR) and immunoblotting were used to determine the impact of histone deacetylation and DNA methylation inhibitors on CREB3L1 expression in breast cancer cell lines. Breast cancer cell lines and tumor samples were analyzed similarly, and CREB3L1 gene methylation was determined using sodium bisulfite conversion and DNA sequencing.

CREB3L1 is a metastasis suppressor that represses expression of genes regulating metastasis, invasion, and angiogenesis.

The unfolded protein response (UPR) is activated in response to hypoxia-induced stress such as in the tumor microenvironment. This study examined the role of CREB3L1 (cyclic AMP [cAMP]-responsive element-binding protein 3-like protein 1), a member of the UPR, in breast cancer development and metastasis. Initial experiments identified the loss of CREB3L1 expression in metastatic breast cancer cell lines compared to low-metastasis or nonmetastatic cell lines.

Overexpression of Akt/PKB modulates N-myristoyltransferase activity in cancer cells.

N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) catalyses the myristoylation reaction. Since NMT activity is elevated in various cancers and activated Akt/PKB leads to cell survival, we were interested in studying if activation of Akt/PKB has any effect on NMT. Overexpression of constitutively active Akt/PKB in HepG2 cells (HepG2-CA-Akt/PKB) led to an approximately 50% reduction of NMT compared with parental HepG2 cells.

Adenovirus-mediated transgene-engineered dendritic cell vaccine of cancer.

Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most effective antigen presenting cells (APCs) to elicit both primary and secondary T-cell response that is critical for antitumor immunity and elimination of intracellular pathogens. Therefore, DCs pulsed ex vivo with antigens have the potential used as cell-based vaccines against tumors. Viral vectors derived from adenoviruses have been extensively used to pulse DCs ex vivo by delivering genes encoding immunomodulatory molecules and tumor antigens to DCs since these vectors are relatively safe, effective in inducing the maturation of DCs, and can accommodate large expression cassettes encoding antigens.

Enhanced antitumor immunity derived from a novel vaccine of fusion hybrid between dendritic and engineered myeloma cells.

Aim: Dendritic cell-tumor cell fusion hybrid vaccines which facilitate antigen presentation represent a new powerful strategy in cancer immunotherapy. The clinical frequency of objective responses to the conventional fusion hybrid vaccines is still quite low, indicating that the current conventional protocol of simply fusing dendritic cells (DCs) and tumor cells needs further improvement to enhance its antitumor efficiency.

Methods: In the present study, we generated a novel fusion hybrid DC/J558(CD40L) by fusing DCs and an engineered J558(CD40L) myeloma cells expressing CD40 ligand (CD40L) molecule using polyethylene glycol (PEG).

Combined alpha tumor necrosis factor gene therapy and engineered dendritic cell vaccine in combating well-established tumors.

Background: Although current immunotherapeutic strategies including adenovirus (AdV)-mediated gene therapy and dendritic cell (DC) vaccine can all stimulate antitumor cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CLT) responses, their therapeutic efficiency has still been limited to generation of prophylactic antitumor immunity against re-challenge with the parental tumor cells or growth inhibition of small tumors in vivo. However, it is the well-established tumors in animal models that mimic clinical patients with existing tumor burdens. Alpha tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha) is a multifunctional and immunoregulatory cytokine that induces antitumor activity and activates immune cells such as DCs and T cells.

Enhanced HER-2/neu-specific antitumor immunity by cotransduction of mouse dendritic cells with two genes encoding HER-2/neu and alpha tumor necrosis factor.

The present study uses an in vivo murine tumor model expressing the human HER-2/neu antigen to evaluate the potential vaccine using dendritic cells (DCs) infected with adenovirus AdVHER-2. We first investigated whether infected DCs (DC(HER-2)) engineered to express HER-2/neu could induce HER-2/neu-specific immune responses. Our data showed that (i) AdVHER2-infected DC(HER-2) expressed HER-2/neu by Western blot and flow cytometric analysis, and (ii) vaccination of mice with DC(HER-2) induced HER-2/neu-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses, but protected only 25% of vaccinated mice from challenge of 3 x 10(5) MCA26/HER-2 tumor cells.