Abstract
Malignant glioma is the most common primary brain tumor in adults and the median survival for patients is less than a year. Despite aggressive treatments including surgical resection, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, only modest improvement has been achieved in the survival of patients with glioma. In this study, the antitumor activity of cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells against human glioma cancer was evaluated in vitro and in vivo. Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells were cultured with IL-2-containing medium in anti-CD3 antibody-coated flasks for 5 days, followed by incubation in IL-2-containing medium for 9 days. The number of cells increased more than 200-fold and the viability was >90%. The resulting populations were consisted of 96% CD3+, 2% CD3−CD56+, 68% CD3+CD56+, 2% CD4+, <1% CD4+CD56+, 80% CD8+, and 49% CD8+CD56+. This heterogeneous cell population was called as CIK cells. At an effector-target cell ratio of 30:1, CIK cells destroyed 43% of U-87 MG human glioma cells, as measured by the 51Cr-release assay. In addition, CIK cells at doses of 0.3, 1, and 3 million cells per mouse inhibited 23%, 40%, and 50% of U-87 MG tumor growth in nude mouse xenograft assays, respectively. This study suggests that CIK cells may be used as an adoptive immunotherapy for glioma cancer patients.
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Kim, H.M., Kang, J.S., Lim, J. et al. Antitumor activity of cytokine-induced killer cells in nude mouse xenograft model. Arch. Pharm. Res. 32, 781–787 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12272-009-1518-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12272-009-1518-1