OBJECTIVETo study the inhibitive effects of gastric cancer cell-dendritic cell fusion vaccine on tumor cells of proliferation cycle.

METHODSPeripheral blood mononuclear cells were separated from gastric cancer patients and co-cultured with granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factors(GM-CSF), interleukin-4(IL-4) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF-alpha) to generate mature dendritic cells. The dendritic cells and SGC7901 cells were fused by polyethylene glycol, and the pure fusion cells were screened out by selective culture systems. The inhibitive effects of gastric cancer cell-dendritic cell fusion vaccines on tumor cell proliferation cycle in vivo and in vitro were detected by flow cytometry.

RESULTSTreated with the fusion vaccine in vitro, the percentages of G(0)/G(1), S and G(2)/M cells of tumor cells were (76.77+/- 4.38)%, (16.50+/- 2.90)% and (6.73+/- 1.59)% respectively. There were significant differences in the percentages of different cell cycle tumor cells between the tumor cells treated with the fusion vaccine and those co-cultured with dendritic cell or T cells alone(P< 0.01). The proliferative index of the tumor cells treated with the fusion vaccine was 23.34+/- 3.51, significantly lower than those co-cultured with dendritic cell and controls (P< 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSFusion vaccines can affect cell cycle of the tumor cells, thus inhibit tumor cell proliferation and growth.