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Review
Tumor Suppressing Gene Therapy
Bingliang Fang and Jack A. Roth
volume 2
july/august 2003 supplementPages: S115-S121
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Tumor-suppressor genes play pivotal roles in maintaining genome integrity and in regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Their loss-of-function mutations are related directly to tumorigenesis. Thus, use of tumor-suppressor genes as anticancer therapeutics has been investigated rigorously in both experimental and clinical researches. Transfer of various tumor-suppressor genes directly to cancer cells has been demonstrated to suppress tumor growth via induction of apoptosis and cell-cycle arrest and, in some cases,with evidence for bystander effects. Various studies also have shown that combination of tumor-suppressor gene therapy with conventional anticancer therapy can yield synergistic therapeutic benefits. Clinical trials with tumor-suppressor genes, especially the p53 gene, have demonstrated that the treatment is well tolerated, and; favorable clinical responses, including a pathologically complete responses, have been observed in a subset of patients with advanced disease or with cancers resistant to conventional therapy. Yet, current gene replacement approaches in cancer gene therapy remain to be improvedmust be improved if they are to have a broader clinical impact. Efficient systemic gene delivery systems will be required ultimately for treatment of metastatic disease. In this review, we have recently summarized achievements in tumor-suppressor gene therapy with a focus on the p53 gene.
We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:
Download PDFIf the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.