The purpose of the study was to explore the anti-tumor effect of ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction mediated herpes simplex virus—thymidine kinase (HSV-TK) suicide gene system on mice hepatoma.

Forty mice were randomly divided into four groups after the models of subcutaneous transplantation tumors were estabilished:(1)PBS;(2) HSV-TK (3) HSV-TK+ultrasound(HSV-TK + US);(4)HSV-TK+ultrasound+microbubbles(HSV-TK+US+MB). The TK protein expression in liver cancer was detected by western-blot. Applying TUNEL staining detected tumor cell apoptosis. At last, the inhibition rates and survival time of the animals were compared among all groups.

The TK protein expression of HSV-TK+MB+US group in tumor-bearing mice tissues were significantly higher than those in other groups. The tumor inhibitory effect of ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction mediated HSV-TK on mice transplantable tumor was significantly higher than those in other groups (p <0.05), and can significantly improve the survival time of tumor-bearing mice.

Ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction can effectively transfect HSV-TK gene into target tissues and play a significant inhibition effect on tumors, which provides a new strategy for gene therapy in liver cancer.

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.