Interleukin 12 (IL-12) is considered as an important molecule for cancer immunotherapy with significant roles in hindering tumor activity, mostly mediated by tumorassociated macrophages and anti-angiogenic factors. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been come out as promising carriers to increase the accumulation of drug/gene in tumor sites. As a vehicle, MSCs have various advantages, including tumor-specific propensity and migratory ability; however, they have limited transfection efficiency, compared to other cells. In this study, we introduced a novel delivery system based on poly-(amidoamine) (PAMAM) (G5) to deliver a plasmid encoding IL-12 to MSCs. Initially, 30% of the amine surface of PAMAM was substituted by 10-bromodecanoic acid. Then, the low molecular weight of protamine peptide was conjugated to PAMAM and PAMAM-alkyl with N-succinimidyl 3-(2-pyridyldithio) propionate as a linker. Physicochemical properties of this modified PAMAM were evaluated, including size and surface charge, toxicity, transfection efficiency to deliver reporter and IL-12 genes into MSCs and finally the migration potential of the engineered stem cells into cancer and normal cell lines (HepG2 and NIH/3 T3). The results showed that alkyl-peptide modified PAMAM with low toxicity had a higher potential to deliver green fluorescent protein and IL-12 genes to stem cells, than PMAMAM, PAMAMalkyl and PAMAM-peptide. These engineered stem cells had a greater ability to migrate to cancer cells than normal cells. It can be concluded that engineered stem cells containing the IL-12 gene can be considered as an efficient cell carrier for cancer immunotherapy. Further clinical studies are needed to confirm these results.
Background: Pilot and large-scale production of recombinant proteins require the presence of stable clones, but the process of selecting stable clones is time consuming. Moreover, continuous clone culturing in large-scale production may cause loss of incoming plasmid and recombinant genes. Considering the advancements in Transient Gene Expression (TGE) technology, the large-scale expression of factor IX (FIX) was investigated in HEK cells by the TGE technique. Materials and Methods: HEK cells were seeded in a cell factory, and then transfected by pcDNA-hFIX plasmid using calcium phosphate co-precipitation method. Stable HEK-hFIX cells were also seeded in a cell factory, separately. After adding vitamin K, recombinant FIX was quantified in conditioned media using an ELISA. Moreover, its functional activity was assayed using an aPTT test. Results: The results showed that the expression and activity of FIX by TGE technology was, respectively, 1.6 and 1.5 times higher than that obtained through stable HEK-FIX cells. Since calculating the specific activity revealed that for all time periods it is 0.2 mU/ng, so the increase in activity is due to the increase in the amount of FIX. Conclusions: HEK cells with higher transfectability seemed to be an appropriate alternative for transient expression for large-scale protein production. Furthermore, if rapid expression of recombinant proteins is intended, TGE can replace costly and low-yield methods.
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