Utility of Clostridium difficile toxin B for inducing anti-tumor immunity

PLoS One. 2014 Oct 23;9(10):e110826. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110826. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Clostridium difficile toxin B (TcdB) is a key virulence factor of bacterium and induces intestinal inflammatory disease. Because of its potent cytotoxic and proinflammatory activities, we investigated the utility of TcdB in developing anti-tumor immunity. TcdB induced cell death in mouse colorectal cancer CT26 cells, and the intoxicated cells stimulated the activation of mouse bone marrow-derived dendritic cells and subsequent T cell activation in vitro. Immunization of BALB/c mice with toxin-treated CT26 cells elicited potent anti-tumor immunity that protected mice from a lethal challenge of the same tumor cells and rejected pre-injected tumors. The anti-tumor immunity generated was cell-mediated, long-term, and tumor-specific. Further experiments demonstrated that the intact cell bodies were important for the immunogenicity since lysing the toxin-treated tumor cells reduced their ability to induce antitumor immunity. Finally, we showed that TcdB is able to induce potent anti-tumor immunity in B16-F10 melanoma model. Taken together, these data demonstrate the utility of C. difficile toxin B for developing anti-tumor immunity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Bacterial Proteins / pharmacology*
  • Bacterial Toxins / pharmacology*
  • Cell Death / drug effects
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Proliferation / drug effects
  • Cytotoxicity, Immunologic / drug effects
  • Dendritic Cells / drug effects
  • Dendritic Cells / immunology
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Immunity / drug effects*
  • Immunization
  • Immunomodulation / drug effects
  • Interferon-gamma / biosynthesis
  • Interleukin-2 / metabolism
  • Male
  • Melanoma / immunology*
  • Melanoma / pathology
  • Mice, Inbred BALB C
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / drug effects
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / immunology

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Bacterial Toxins
  • Interleukin-2
  • toxB protein, Clostridium difficile
  • Interferon-gamma