Possibility of specific expression of the protein toxins at the tumor site with tumor-specialized promoter

Abstract

The ultimate goal of cancer therapy is to establish a treatment regimen that will ensure complete eradication of cancers with minimal toxicity to the surrounding normal tissues. Protein toxins are highly efficient when they are used as treatment reagents of cancer but are associated with toxicity in normal tissues. Given that specialized promoters have been widely investigated for specific expressions, we speculated that tumor-specialized promoters would play an important role in protein toxin tumor therapy. Therefore, we hypothesize that a tumor-specialized promoter can be inserted into a truncated protein toxin expression vector. Then, the vector can be introduced into the human body by either a viral or nonviral vector. These protein toxin genes would be specifically expressed in tumor cells, but not in normal tissue cells. The proposition may provide a new strategy with the development of protein toxins for specific targeting to neoplastic tumors.