Function of dendritic cells vaccines targeting aspartate-β-hydroxylase on hepatocellular carcinoma in vitro

Abstract:

Objective：To explore the antitumor effect of dendritic cells（DCs） vaccine targeting aspartate-β-hydroxylase（AAH） gene against hepatocellular carcinoma（HCC） cells HepG2 and Huh7 for searching DCs vaccine for hepatocarcinoma. Methods：AAH-DCs vaccine was prepared in vitro via infecting DCs with recombinant adenovirus vector encoding AAH. T cells co-cultured with AAH-DCs vaccine were served as the effector cells and human HCC cell lines HepG2 and Huh7 were regarded as the target cells. The prolifer－ation and apoptosis of target cells，after co-culturing with the effector cells for 24h，were detected by CCK-8 and FCM analysis re－spectively. C57BL/6 mice were immunized with AAH-DCs vaccines by three continuous subcutaneous injections，and the cytotoxic effect of T cells against target cells was observed by lactate dehydrogenase（LDH） release assay. Results：Compared with the control groups，the declined proliferation activity of target cells in AAH-DCs vaccine group was found by CCK-8，while increased apoptosis rate of target cells in AAH-DCs vaccine group was tested by FCM（P=0.000）. Additionally，LDH release assay showed that the cytolysis effect of target cells in AAH-DCs vaccine group was higher than that in other control groups（P=0.000）. Conclusion：DCs vaccines targeting AAH can induce the production of cytotoxicity T lymphocytes for fulfilling the killing of HCC cells expressing AAH gene.