Transcription-controlled gene therapy against tumor angiogenesis.

A major drawback of current approaches to antiangiogenic gene therapy is the lack of tissue-specific targeting. The aim of this work was to trigger endothelial cell-specific apoptosis, using adenoviral vector-mediated delivery of a chimeric death receptor derived from the modified endothelium-specific pre-proendothelin-1 (PPE-1) promoter. In the present study, we constructed an adenovirus-based vector that targets tumor angiogenesis. Transcriptional control was achieved by use of a modified endothelium-specific promoter. Expression of a chimeric death receptor, composed of Fas and TNF receptor 1, resulted in specific apoptosis of endothelial cells in vitro and sensitization of cells to the proapoptotic effect of TNF-alpha. The antitumoral activity of the vectors was assayed in two mouse models. In the model of B16 melanoma, a single systemic injection of virus to the tail vein caused growth retardation of tumor and reduction of tumor mass with central tumor necrosis. When the Lewis lung carcinoma lung-metastasis model was applied, i.v. injection of vector resulted in reduction of lung-metastasis mass, via an antiangiogenic mechanism. Moreover, by application of the PPE-1-based transcriptional control, a humoral immune response against the transgene was avoided. Collectively, these data provide evidence that transcriptionally controlled, angiogenesis-targeted gene therapy is feasible.

Mutant p53 gain of function: repression of CD95(Fas/APO-1) gene expression by tumor-associated p53 mutants.

Tumor-associated mutant forms of p53 can exert an antiapoptotic gain of function activity, which probably confers a selective advantage upon tumor cells harboring such mutations. We report that mutant p53 suppresses the expression of the CD95 (Fas/APO-1) gene, encoding a death receptor implicated in a variety of apoptotic responses. Moderate (40-50%) downregulation of CD95 mRNA and surface protein expression by mutant p53 correlates with partial protection against CD95-dependent cell death. Excess mutant p53 represses the transcriptional activity of the CD95 promoter, with the extent of repression varying among different tumor-associated p53 mutants. Furthermore, mutant p53 protein binds the CD95 promoter in vitro, in a region distinct from the one implicated in tight interactions of the CD95 gene with wild-type p53. Hence, the CD95 promoter is likely to be a direct target for downregulation by mutant p53. This activity of mutant p53 may contribute to its gain of function effects in oncogenesis.

How are the regulators regulated? The search for mechanisms that impose specificity on induction of cell death and NF-kappaB activation by members of the TNF/NGF receptor family.

Signals emanating from receptors of the tumor necrosis factor/nerve growth factor (TNF/NGF) family control practically all aspects of immune defense and, as such, constitute potential targets for therapeutic intervention through rational drug design. Indeed, arrest of these signals by blocking ligand-receptor interactions enables effective suppression of a variety of activities that are implicated in various pathologies, such as T and B lymphocyte activation and growth, inflammation, fibroblast proliferation, and cell death. To be therapeutically useful, however, inhibition of signaling should be restricted by determinants of specificity, at least to the same degree observed when blocking activation of individual receptors. In spite of their broad range of functions, receptors of the TNF/NGF family are known to activate just a few signaling pathways. Of these, the most extensively studied are the activation of the caspase protease cascade, which leads to cell death, and the activation of NF-kappaB (nuclear factor-kappaB) transcription factors through protein phosphorylation cascades. Until recently, most studies of the two pathways have solely focused on the core signaling complexes that are shared by the different receptors: death-inducing complexes containing the cysteine proteases caspase-8 and caspase-10, bound to the adapter protein MORT1/FADD (mediator of receptor-induced toxicity/Fas-associated DD protein), and the NF-kappaB-activating complex, composed of the protein kinases IKK1 (IkappaB kinase 1) and IKK2 (IkappaB kinase 2) and the regulatory subunit NEMO (NF-kappaB essential modulator; the 'IKK signalosome'). Knowledge has begun to emerge of additional molecules and mechanisms that affect these basic signaling complexes and impose specificity on their function.