Given that cancer is ultimately a genetic disease, it has long been the hope of researchers to use gene therapy to attack tumors where they might be most susceptible.
Those prospects have taken a significant step forward with the report that a trans-European research team has developed a nanoparticle that transports antitumor genes selectively to cancer cells. The technique, which leaves healthy cells unaffected, could offer hope to people with difficult-to-treat cancers. Although it has so far been tested only in mice, the researchers hope for human trials in 2 years.
Reporting its work in the journal Cancer Research, the research team, headed by Georges Vassaux, Ph.D., Institute National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), used poly(propylene imine) dendrimers as carriers for the genes. This particular dendrimer forms stable complexes with DNA that only appear to fall apart when inside tumor cells.
Once taken up by cancer cells, the genes enclosed in the nanoparticles force the cell to produce proteins that can kill the cancer. In this study, the cells were forced to make a protein known as the Na/I symporter, which was then visible in whole-body scans of the mice. These scans revealed that the transfected gene was expressed in cancer cells but not at an observable level in healthy cells.