[The use of gene gun in cancer gene therapy]

With Helios gene gun, the report genes EGFP and Lac-Z were transfected to several cultured mammalian tumor cell lines in vitro and mice skin in vivo, respectively. A stable long time exogene's expression were got. Then, the pWRG3142, which carried mGM-CSF gene was delivered to the abdominal skin of C57BL/6 mice using gene gun. Pathological sections showed the local transproteins' expression companying with a profound inflammation reaction characterized by neutrophilic infiltration. ELISA assay of transfected mouse's serum sample indicated a high improvement of transgenic proteins level, which demonstrated that transgenic GM-CSF secreted from treated skin into the bloodstream effectively. In B16 melanoma tumor model, mice immunized with mGM-CSF expression plasmids could be partially protected from 1 x 10(5) B16 cells challenge and exhibited a drastically reduced tumor growth rate. Finally, we conclucled that exogenes could be transfected into cultured cell lines and mice skin effectively by gene gun technology, and gene gun mediated in vivo delivery of GM-CSF cDNA should be further developed for potential clinical testing as an approach for human cancer gene therapy.