Neurotensin (NTS) and its high affinity receptor (NTSR1) are up regulated in 20% of breast cancers, and NTSR1 overexpression was shown to predict a poor prognosis for 5 year overall survival in invasive breast carcinomas.
After recombined with HSV-TK and Coli.NTR gene, this fiber-modified Ad5 vector (Ad-RGD-hT-TK/NTR) was compared with that of our previously constructed Ad5 vector (Ad-hT-TK/NTR) for its therapeutic effects in human breast cancer cell lines.
These results suggest that suicide genes HSV-TK and NTR mediated by a single adenovirus vector under the control of an enhanced hTERT promoter results in additive anti-tumor effects and may provide a relatively safe strategy for the treatment of breast cancer by tumor-specific targeting.