Stem Cell Cancer Therapy

Bratislava, Slovakia -

Various types of stem cells are known to home specifically into neoplastically transformed tissue. In a recent paper (Kucerova et al. Adipose tissue-derived human mesenchymal stem cells mediated prodrug cancer gene therapy. Cancer Res. 2007 Jul 1;67(13):6304-13) this property was leveraged in order to provide the tumor with a toxic payload.

The investigators used adipose derived stem cells as a source of mesenchymal cells which they retrovirally transfected with cytosine deaminase. This enzyme is capable of activating the prodrug 5-fluorocytosine.

Potent tumor killing and migration of stem cells into the area of the tumor was observed in xenograft models.