Herpes Simplex Virus Thymidine Kinase Gene Therapy in Experimental Rat BT4C Glioma Model
© 2000 Nature America, Inc. 0929-1903/00/$15.00/ϩ0 www.nature.com/cgt Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene therapy in experimental rat BT4C glioma model: Effect of the percentage of thymidine kinase-positive glioma cells on treatment effect, survival time, and tissue reactions Anu-Maaria Sandmair,1,2 Marita Turunen,1,3 Kristiina Tyynela¨,1,3 Sami Loimas,1 Pauli Vainio,4 Ritva Vanninen,4 Matti Vapalahti,2,5 Rolf Bjerkvig,6 Juhani Ja¨nne,1,5 and Seppo Yla¨-Herttuala1,5,7 1A.I. Virtanen Institute, University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland; Departments of 2Neurosurgery, 3Oncology, and 4Clinical Radiology, and 5Gene Therapy Unit, University Hospital of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland; 6Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; and 7Department of Medicine, University Hospital of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland. Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-tk) gene transfer and ganciclovir (GCV) administration have been suggested for the treatment of malignant gliomas. To understand tissue responses and possible ways to improve the treatment effect, we studied tumor growth, tissue reactions, and survival time after HSV-tk/GCV treatment in a syngeneic BT4C rat glioma model by mixing various ratios of stably transfected HSV-tk-expressing BT4C-tk glioma cells with wild-type BT4C glioma cells (percentage of BT4C-tk cells: 0%, 1%, 10%, 30%, 50%, and 100%), followed by injection into BDIX rat brains (n ϭ 79). With the exception of some animals with end-stage tumors, very little astroglia or microglia reactivity was detected in the wild-type tumors as analyzed by immunocytochemistry using glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP)-, vimentin-, human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen-DR-, OX-42-, and CD68-specific monoclonal antibodies.
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