Engineering Cancer Cells with IL-4 Overexpression for Stronger T Cell Activation

The overexpression of cytokine genes by tumor cells as a result of gene transfer has emerged as a novel strategy to augment in vivo host reactivity to various cancers. Creative Biolabs provides customized services to generate IL-4 overexpressed cancer cell lines. Our experienced cell engineering team will help determine the best-suited solution based on your project.

Functions of IL-4 in T Cell Activation

Interleukin 4 (IL-4) is a pleiotropic type I cytokine that controls both growth and differentiation among hemopoietic and non-hemopoietic cells. IL-4 regulates a number of lymphocyte functions, including

• Classically, IL-4 drives CD4+T cell polarization in the Th2 phenotype together with suppression of IFN-γ–producing Th1 cells;
• IL-4 directly stimulates CD8+ T cells to proliferate. CD8+T cells activated in the presence of IL-4 can develop into distinct, non-cytotoxic CD8−and cytotoxic CD8+subsets;
• IL-4 induces both the de novo production of IL-4 and down-regulation of CD8 expression in activated CD8+T cells;
• Both IL-4 and TGF-β are indispensable for Th9 cell priming and differentiation;
• IL-4 drives the immunoglobulin (Ig) class switch to IgG1 and IgE;
• IL-4 and IL-13 induce alternative macrophage activation.

Fig.1 Schematic of cellular sources of IL-4 and target cells for IL-4.¹

Studies Performed with IL-4 Overexpressing Tumor Cells

• A study showed IL-4 gene-transfected tumor cells could induce tumor-specific immunity that was primarily mediated by CD8+T cells in the mouse renal cancer model.
• IL-4 gene-transfected glioma cells induce effective therapeutic immunity in preclinical glioma models.

Engineering Cancer Cells with IL-4 Overexpression Service

Gene-modified whole cancer cells used as a vaccine represent one form of immunotherapy currently in development and clinical trials. Immunization with tumors overexpressing certain cytokines has demonstrated their ability to promote the generation of tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes by various mechanisms. In addition, these cells provide a source of all potential antigens, thereby bypassing issues of tumor antigen loss. IL-4-modified tumor cells have been used for cancer immunotherapy in many experimental and clinical studies.

With our well-established platform, Creative Biolabs provides delivers tailor-made services for engineering cancer cells with IL-6 overexpression. We possess a series of assay cell line construction technologies and are extensively experienced in tumor cell culture, which enables the construction of various IL-6-modified cancer cell lines through the viral system, non-viral system, and CRISPR, thus shortening your project turnaround time. Our customer service accompanies you at every single step and helps you handle all aspects of your cancer cell engineering workflow.

Our cancer cell engineering services cover a range of different cell lines. The following lists the available cancer cell types:

Creative Biolabs provides our clients with state-of-the-art cancer cell line engineering and production services. We will customize our offering to meet your specific project needs. If you are interested in our services, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Reference

1. Keegan, Achsah D., Warren J. Leonard, and Jinfang Zhu. "Recent advances in understanding the role of IL-4 signaling." Faculty reviews 10 (2021). Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.

Download our brochure