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Background: While CAR‐T therapy has successfully treated haematological malignancies, it has proved sub‐optimal for solid tumours. The main limitation is the inability of CAR‐T cells to infiltrate and then proliferate within tumours. Method: We co‐expressed IL‐7 and PH20, a type of hyaluronidase, with CAR targeting GPC3 (G3CAR‐7 × 20). We test the anti‐tumour ability in vitro and in vivo. Moreover the capacity of infiltration and proliferation of G3CAR‐7 × 20 was measured. Result: We found (G3CAR‐7 × 20) exhibited better proliferation in vivo and in vitro than G3CAR, reduced the level of apoptosis after stimulation by tumour cells, and maintained the memory phenotype of CAR‐T cells. G3CAR‐7 × 20 also increased the ability of CAR‐T cells to infiltrate tumour tissue. Conclusion: co‐expressed IL‐7 and PH20 may significantly enhance the efficacy of targeted GPC3 CAR‐T cells in solid tumours treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been demonstrated to play important roles in cancer progress. However, the roles in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are still unclear. Here, we found has_circRNA_001306 (circ_1306) was up‐regulated in HCC tissues and cell lines. Knockdown the expression circ_1306 significantly suppressed HCC cell proliferation and induced the cell apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we identified circ_1306 could up‐regulate the expression of CDK16 by sponging miR‐584‐5p. The expression of miR‐584‐5p was decreased, and the expression of CDK16 was increased in HCC tissues and cell lines. Meanwhile, either knockdown of miR‐584‐5p or overexpression of CDK16 could suppress the HCC cell proliferation. In vivo, overexpression of miR‐584‐5p or knockdown of circ_1306 could inhibit the expression of CDK16, and suppress tumour growth. Altogether, our findings suggested that circ_1306 could promoter HCC progress by miR‐584‐5p/CDK16 axis, which provided a novel marker for HCC diagnosis and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore the effect and mechanism of artesunate on γδ T cell-mediated antitumor immune responses against hepatoma carcinoma cells (HepG2) in vitro. Methods: Human γδ T cells or HepG2 were respectively treated with artesunate, subjected to co-culture as appropriate, and the following assays were subsequently conducted: CCK8 to examine cell viability; LDH release assay to detect the killing effect of γδ T cells on HepG2 cells; flow cytometry to examine the expression of perforin (PFP) and granzyme B (GraB) of γδ T cells; ELISA to evaluate the levels of TGF-β1 and IL-10 in the collected supernatant of HepG2 cells pretreated with artesunate; and Western blot analysis to examine Fas, FasL, STAT3, p-STAT3 expression of HepG2 cells induced by artesunate.  Results: The results showed that the cytotoxicity effect of γδ T cells pretreated with artesunate on HepG2 cells was augmented via elevating the expression of GraB in γδ T cells. Furthermore, treatment with artesunate reversed the inhibition of HepG2 cells on γδ T cells by reducing the secretion of TGF-β1 in HepG2 cells supernatant and enhanced the antitumor effect of γδ T cells against HepG2 cells through increasing the expression of Fas on HepG2 cells, which may be attributed to the inhibition of STAT3 signaling protein. Conclusion: Artesunate has several mechanisms for augmenting the antitumor immune responses mediated by γδ T cells. These results suggested artesunate may be an efficacious agent in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]