Immunotherapy of tumors with human telomerase reverse transcriptase immortalized human umbilical vein endothelial cells

Int J Oncol. 2015 Nov;47(5):1901-11. doi: 10.3892/ijo.2015.3175. Epub 2015 Sep 21.

Abstract

Human umbilical endothelial cells (HUVECs) have been proven to be effective in tumor anti-angiogenesis but the mechanism remained to be further demonstrated. The restricted ability of HUVECs to proliferate in vitro also limits their application on a large scale. In the present study, we immortalized HUVECs with hTERT genes by lentiviral infection and explored the antitumor immunity of hTERT-expressing HUVECs (HUVEC-TERTs). Results showed that HUVEC-TERTs maintained high telomere activity and expressed CD31, VEGFR-II and integrin α5. Passage-30 HUVEC-TERTs were able to form vascular tubes in vitro without showing signs of senescence. In vivo HUVEC-TERTs elicited antitumor immunity in mouse LL2 and CT26 models protectively and therapeutically. Both humoral and cellular immunity participated in the tumor anti-angiogenesis as HUVEC-neutralizing sera antibodies and HUVEC-specific CTL were detected. The subsets of activated spleen T lymphocytes included both CD4(+) T cells and CD8(+) T cells. Moreover, MDSCs and Tregs were decreased while T lymphocytes were aggregated in the tumor microenvironment. Collectively, the present study is the first to confirm the antitumor immunity of hTERT-immortalized HUVECs. Both anti-angiogenesis and tumor microenvironmental regulation participated in the antitumor activity. Transducing hTERT genes might be a new strategy to allow HUVECs to be applied on a large scale in cancer immunotherapy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes / immunology
  • Cancer Vaccines / immunology
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells
  • Humans
  • Immunotherapy*
  • Mice
  • Neoplasms / immunology*
  • Neoplasms / pathology
  • Neoplasms / therapy*
  • Neovascularization, Pathologic / immunology*
  • Neovascularization, Pathologic / therapy
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / immunology
  • Telomerase / genetics
  • Telomerase / immunology*
  • Telomere / genetics

Substances

  • Cancer Vaccines
  • TERT protein, human
  • Telomerase