Study on interleukin-18 gene transfer into human breast cancer cells to prevent tumorigenicity.

To study the effect of interleukin-18 gene transfection on the tumorigenesis of breast cancer cell line Bacp37, human breast cancer cell line Bcap37 were transfected with Lipofectamine and selected by G418. The biological expression of rhIL-18 was tested by RT-PCR and ELISA method; nude mice were injected with Bcap37 cell with or without the hIL-18 gene. The hIL-18 cDNA was successfully integrated into Bcap37 cell; 126.3+/-4.5 pg hIL-18 secreted by one million transduced cells in 24 hours. Nude mice injected with IL-18 gene engineered Bcap37 cell had no tumor growth. These findings indicated that human breast cancer cells were successfully modified by the gene of IL-18 cytokine; the IL-18 gene engineered Bcap37 cells secreted hIL-18 and lost their tumorigenicity. The Bcap37 cells transduced with IL-18 gene may be used as breast cancer vaccine.