Potent Antitumor Effect of Interleukin-24 Gene in the Survivin Promoter and Retinoblastoma Double-Regulated Oncolytic Adenovirus

Interleukin (IL)-24 is an excellent therapeutic gene for cancer therapy. In this work, IL-24 was inserted into Ad.sp-E1A((Delta 24)), an oncolytic adenovirus with a 24-bp deletion in the E1A gene, which was driven by the survivin promoter to form Ad.sp-E1A((Delta 24))-IL-24. Ad.sp-E1A((Delta 24))-IL-24 has an excellent antitumor effect in vitro for human nasopharyngeal, liver, lung, and cervical carcinoma cell lines but does no or little damage to normal cell lines L-02 and WI38. Furthermore, it achieved nearly complete inhibition (although not elimination) of NCI-H460 lung carcinoma growth in nude mice. The antitumor efficacy of Ad.sp-E1A((Delta 24))-IL-24 on NCI-H460 cells was clearly mediated by apoptosis, because it induced caspase-3 and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage. This is the first report of Ad.sp-E1A((Delta 24))-IL-24 with such an excellent, broad, and specific antitumor effect in vitro and nearly complete inhibition of lung tumor growth in vivo.