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  2. Combinatorial immunotherapy with gemcitabine and ex vivo-expanded NK cells induces anti-tumor effects in pancreatic cancer

Combinatorial immunotherapy with gemcitabine and ex vivo-expanded NK cells induces anti-tumor effects in pancreatic cancer

  • Sci Rep. 2023 May 11;13(1):7656. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-34827-z.
Eun-Kyoung Koh # 1 2 Hong-Rae Lee # 1 Woo-Chang Son # 1 Ga-Young Park 1 Juhee Kim 1 Jae-Ho Bae 3 You-Soo Park 4
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Research Center, Dongnam Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences, Busan, 46033, South Korea.
  • 2 Department of Biochemistry, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Yangsan, 50612, South Korea.
  • 3 Department of Biochemistry, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Yangsan, 50612, South Korea. biosole@pusan.ac.kr.
  • 4 Department of Research Center, Dongnam Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences, Busan, 46033, South Korea. biotek01@hanmail.net.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

Pancreatic Cancer is difficult to diagnose at the initial stage and is often discovered after metastasis to nearby organs. Gemcitabine is currently used as a standard treatment for pancreatic Cancer. However, since chemotherapy for pancreatic Cancer has not yet reached satisfactory therapeutic results, Adjuvant chemotherapy methods are attempted. It can be expected that combining immune cell therapy with existing Anticancer drug combination treatment will prevent Cancer recurrence and increase survival rates. We isolated natural killer (NK) cells and co-cultured them with strongly activated autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) as feeder cells, activated using CD3 antibody, IFN-r, IL-2, and γ-radiation. NK cells expanded in this method showed greater cytotoxicity than resting NK cells, when co-cultured with pancreatic Cancer cell lines. Tumor growth was effectively inhibited in a pancreatic Cancer mouse xenograft model. Therapeutic efficacy was increased by using gemcitabine and erlotinib in combination. These findings suggest that NK cells cultured by the method proposed here have excellent anti-tumor activity. We demonstrate that activated NK cells can efficiently inhibit pancreatic tumors when used in combination with gemcitabine-based therapy.

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