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Combined endostatin/sFlt‐1 antiangiogenic gene therapy is highly effective in a rat model of HCC
Author(s) -
Graepler Florian,
Verbeek Barbara,
Graeter Tilmann,
Smirnow Irina,
Kong Hwai Loong,
Schuppan Detlef,
Bauer Michael,
Vonthein Reinhard,
Gregor Michael,
Lauer Ulrich M.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
hepatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.488
H-Index - 361
eISSN - 1527-3350
pISSN - 0270-9139
DOI - 10.1002/hep.20613
Subject(s) - endostatin , angiogenesis , in vivo , hepatocellular carcinoma , vascular endothelial growth factor , genetic enhancement , cancer research , downregulation and upregulation , medicine , pharmacology , angiogenesis inhibitor , biology , vegf receptors , gene , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is regarded as a suitable target for antiangiogenic strategies. However, antiangiogenic agents aimed at single targets can be neutralized by upregulation of other proangiogenic factors. Therefore, combined approaches addressing at least two angiogenic targets should be more effective. Employing an appropriate rat hepatoma model, we examined the effects of sFlt-1 (soluble vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGF] receptor 1 as an indirect inhibitor of angiogenesis) and endostatin (a direct inhibitor of angiogenesis) in both single-agent as well as combined approaches under in vitro and in vivo conditions. Similar to human HCC, rat Morris hepatoma (MH) cells secreted high levels of VEGF, but no endogenous sFlt-1. Parental MH or MHES(r) cells, stably expressing rat endostatin, were adenovirally transduced either with AdsFlt-1 (encoding sFlt-1) or control vector Adnull (containing no transgene), followed by subcutaneous inoculation into syngeneic ACI rats. Compared with MH/Adnull cells, expressing no antiangiogenic factors at all, tumor weights were reduced fourfold in the MHES(r)/Adnull group, 19-fold in the MH/AdsFlt-1-group, and 77-fold in the MHES(r)/AdsFlt-1 combination therapy group. Analysis of variance did not show a significant interaction between the effects of the two factors ES(r) and sFlt-1; their effects multiplied. In conclusion, combined expression of sFlt-1 and endostatin effectively suppresses HCC growth under in vivo conditions. Supplementary material for this article can be found on the HEPATOLOGY website (http://interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0270-9139/suppmat/index.html).