IMPLICATIONS: These data expand the prospect of MSC-mediated radioiodine imaging-guided therapy of pancreatic cancer using the sodium iodide symporter as a theranostic gene in a clinical setting.
A vaccinia virus encoding the human sodium iodide symporter facilitates long-term image monitoring of virotherapy and targeted radiotherapy of pancreatic cancer.
These results show that the 0.8-kb MUC1 promoter was successfully used to drive human NIS-targeted expression in pancreatic cancer cells, and Ad/MUC1/NIS-mediated radiotherapy can make pancreatic cancer xenografts in mice shrinking.
The ability to target NIS expression to pancreatic cancer, which has such limited treatment options, may be highly beneficial and warrants further investigation.