Gene Therapy of Cancer with Interleukin-12

IL-12 has demonstrated remarkable antitumor activity when used directly as a recombinant protein or when different viral or non-viral vectors transfer its genes. At enhancing tumor immunity, IL-12 acts as a bridge between innate and adaptive immune responses due to its ability to induce proliferation and activation of NK, NKT, and T cells. In addition, IL-12 inhibits tumor angiogenesis mainly through IFN gamma-dependent production of the chemokine IP10. As a result, IL-12 can eliminate several types of tumors developed in rodents. Pre-clinical experience forecasted a quick and successful clinical translation, but the encouraging results observed in animals were not reproduced in patients. Moreover, unacceptable toxicity resulting from IFN gamma overproduction was observed in 2 renal carcinoma patients included in a phase II clinical trial that consisted in systemic administration of rIL-12. As a consequence, development of IL-12 as an antitumor agent was temporarily halted while the high expectations raised among clinicians faded away. Gene transfer methods are designed to confine IL-12 production in the tumor environment preventing systemic toxicity. Tumor cells, dendritic cells, or autologous fibroblasts have been transfected with recombinant adenoviruses or retroviruses to secrete IL-12 locally, showing good efficacy and safety profiles. IL-12 combination with other immunotherapy approaches synergizes to achieve even better results. Encouraging pilot clinical results have been recently obtained from the first phase I trial studying adenovirus mediated in vivo gene transfer of IL-12 into lesions of advanced cancer patients. Further improvements will follow from: i) increases in the efficacy of gene transduction; ii) development of tumor specific promoters; iii) development of regulatable and long-term expression vectors and iv) combination with other immunological and non-immunological anticancer therapies.