Specific Colon Cancer Cell Cytotoxicity Induced by Bacteriophage E Gene Expression under Transcriptional Control of Carcinoembryonic Antigen Promoter Rama Ballesteros, Ana Rosa Hernández, Rosa Perazzoli, Gloria Burgos Poyatos, Miguel Melguizo Alonso, Consolación Vélez Fernández, María Celia Prados Salazar, José Carlos Carcinoma embryonic antigen Colorectal cancer E gene Suicide gene therapy Promoter tissue specific Colorectal cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers in the world. Patients in advanced stages often develop metastases that require chemotherapy and usually show a poor response, have a low survival rate and develop considerable toxicity with adverse symptoms. Gene therapy may act as an adjuvant therapy in attempts to destroy the tumor without affecting normal host tissue. The bacteriophage E gene has demonstrated significant antitumor activity in several cancers, but without any tumor-specific activity. The use of tumor-specific promoters may help to direct the expression of therapeutic genes so they act against specific cancer cells. We used the carcinoembryonic antigen promoter (CEA) to direct E gene expression (pCEA-E) towards colon cancer cells. pCEA-E induced a high cell growth inhibition of human HTC-116 colon adenocarcinoma and mouse MC-38 colon cancer cells in comparison to normal human CCD18co colon cells, which have practically undetectable levels of CEA. In addition, in vivo analyses of mice bearing tumors induced using MC-38 cells showed a significant decrease in tumor volume after pCEA-E treatment and a low level of Ki-67 in relation to untreated tumors. These results suggest that the CEA promoter is an excellent candidate for directing E gene expression specifically toward colon cancer cells. 2015-09-02T07:50:38Z 2015-09-02T07:50:38Z 2015 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Rama Ballesteros, A.R.; et al. Specific Colon Cancer Cell Cytotoxicity Induced by Bacteriophage E Gene Expression under Transcriptional Control of Carcinoembryonic Antigen Promoter. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 16(6): 12601-12615 (2015). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/37219] 1422-0067 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/37219 10.3390/ijms160612601 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License MDPI