Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Field Induces an Antitumor Effect in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer via CXCL9 Axis Dependence in Mice

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a refractory tumor, and therapeutic options are very limited. Local ablation has been applied recently. Chemokines play a critical role in the recruitment of immune cells into ablative tumors. Nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF) shows potential anti-tumor...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhentian Xu, Caixu Pan, Luyan Chen, Junjie Qian, Xinhua Chen, Lin Zhou, Shusen Zheng
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-03-01
Series:Cancers
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/15/7/2076
Description
Summary:Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a refractory tumor, and therapeutic options are very limited. Local ablation has been applied recently. Chemokines play a critical role in the recruitment of immune cells into ablative tumors. Nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF) shows potential anti-tumor efficacy, but the mechanism for maintaining the immune effect is not very clear. Here, we applied nsPEF for treating 4T1 breast cancer cells in vitro. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) was applied. Anti-CXCL9 was used alone or combined with nsPEF to treat triple-negative breast cancer in mice. We demonstrated that nsPEF effectively induced cell apoptosis and inhibited the growth and metastasis of triple-negative breast cancer. An immune effect, especially chemotaxis, was activated by nsPEF. The number of infiltrated CD8<sup>+</sup> T cells was increased significantly. We found that the inhibition of residual breast cancer growth by nsPEF was dependent on the CXCL9 axis. In conclusion, our work demonstrated that nsPEF effectively ablated the tumor, aroused an immune response, and inhibited residual breast cancer growth via CXCL9 axis dependence in mice.
ISSN:2072-6694