Abstract: Objective To investigate the cytolytic effect against liver cancer cells of hIL-2 gene transfected cytokine induced killer cells(CIK) combined with dendritic cells(DC).Methods Peripheral blood mononuclear cells(PBMC) were isolated from healthy adult donors by density gradient centrifugation.After 2 hours incubation,CIK was generated from non-adherent cells by anti-CD3McAb,IL-2,IL-1 and IFN-γ.DC was induced from adherent cells by rhIL-4 and rhGM-CSF.Recombinant adenovirus vector pAdBM5-GFP-IL-2 infected CIK at 100 MOI generated IL-2-CIK.DC were pulsed with HepG2 lysate at the ration of 1:3 and generate lysate-DC.The effective cells were lysate-DC-IL2-CIK,lysate-DC-CIK,CIK,DC-CIK and IL2-CIK respectively The target cells were HepG2,K562 and H7404 tumor cell line.The ratio of effective cells and target cells(E/T) were 10:1,20:1 and 40:1 respectively.The cytotoxicity against HepG2,K562 and H7404 was detected with MTT assays. Results There were stronger cytolytic effects against HepG2 for effective cells(Lysate-DC-IL2-CIK) than those effective cells against K562,H7404 and HepG2 in the control group at different E/T ratios.Its cytolytic effects enhanced with the rising of E/T ratio and reached climax when the E/T ratio was 1:40.Conclusions hIL-2 transfected CIK combined with hepatocellular carcinoma antigen pulsed DC has more effective cytolytic effect.

Key words: CIK, DC, IL-2, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Cytolytic effect