A few years ago in vitro, in vivo, and several clinical trials have been described regarding adjuvant IFN-α therapy in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic adenocarcinoma upregulated factor (PAUF) confers resistance to pancreatic cancer cells against oncolytic parvovirus H-1 infection through IFNA receptor-mediated signaling.
Overexpression of IFN-induced protein with tetratricopeptide repeats 3 (IFIT3) in pancreatic cancer: cellular "pseudoinflammation" contributing to an aggressive phenotype.
This study suggested that a local IFN-alpha gene therapy is a promising therapeutic strategy for pancreatic cancer, due to its dual mechanisms of antitumour activities and lack of significant toxicity.
Therefore, we examined transfection of the human pancreatic cancer cell line DAN-G with a retrovirus encoding for IFN-alpha and the effect of IFN-alpha gene expression alone or in combination with gemcitabine on growth inhibition of DAN-G pancreatic cancer cells in vitro and in vivo in orthotopically implanted DAN-G cells in nude mice.