African Journal of
Microbiology Research

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Microbiol. Res.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1996-0808
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJMR
  • Start Year: 2007
  • Published Articles: 5236

Full Length Research Paper

Antitumor efficacy of Bifidobacterium longum carrying endostatin gene enriched with selenium and the distribution of selenium

Yan Yin1, Qing-Xiao Wang1, Xu Chen1, Jing Xing1, Yan-Rong Fan2, Zhi-Wei Wu3,Jian-Jun Wang1* and Gen-Xing Xu3,4*
  1Department of Biological Science and Technology and State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Mailbox 426, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China. 2School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. 3Center for Public Health Research, Medical School, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China. 4Jiangsu Research Center for Gene Pharmaceutical Engineering and Technology, 42 Chenghu Road, Suzhou 215128, China.
Email: [email protected], [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 12 October 2011
  •  Published: 23 December 2011

Abstract

 

As a domestic anaerobic bacterium in the human body, Bifidobacterium longum can selectively germinate and proliferate in the hypoxic regions of solid tumors. Selenium (Se) has been found to inhibit carcinogenesis and tumor growth. In our previous study, we demonstrate that B. longum carrying pBV22210-Endostatin (B. longum-En) inhibit tumor growth. In this study, we enriched Se to B. longum-En (Se-B. longum-En) to evaluate the antitumor efficacy when delivered orally or intravenously on H22 tumor-bearing mice and examined the distribution of Se in vivo. The results showed that Se-B. longum-En could significantly inhibit tumor growth as well as extend the median survival time of tumor-bearing mice. The concentration-time curve suggested that Se could be absorbed and disseminated rapidly in vivo. The results also showed that there was a dose-effect relationship between Se and tumor inhibition rate and the antitumor effect was more pronounced when Se-B. longum-En was delivered via vein than by oral route. Based on the results, B. longum carrying endostatin gene and enriched with Se may be a potential agent in cancer gene therapy.

 

Key words: Bifidobacterium longum, endostatin, selenium, tumor, gene therapy.