A novel cancer treatment by a combination of irradiation and application of iPS cells

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K15573
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Radiation science
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Tsuboi Koji 筑波大学, 医学医療系, 教授 (90188615)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 梨井 康 国立研究開発法人国立成育医療研究センター, 移植免疫研究室, 室長 (60321890)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: Radiotherapy / Dendritic cells / anti-PD1 antibody / abscopal effect

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Local irradiation to tumors may act as antitumor immune adjuvant. We tested whether a combination of local injection of bone marrow or iPS-cells derived dendritic cells (DCs) and intraperitoneal administration of anti-PD-1 antibody after radiotherapy was effective or not to induce antitumor immune response. X-rays and proton beams were used as radiotherapy.
After irradiation to B16 melanoma cells implanted subcutaneously at the left thigh of C57BL/6 mice, DCs were injected to the tumor site 4 times, and anti-PD-1 antibody were administrated 3 times. To examine the abscopal effect, tumor cells were inoculated to the right thigh as metastatic tumors, and only the primary tumors on the left side were treated. As a result, the growth of both the primary and the metastatic tumors were significantly inhibited, extending survival times of mice significantly. There were no significant differences in effects between X-rays and protons, and between BM- and iPS-DCs.

Free Research Field

放射線腫瘍学、腫瘍免疫学