Figure 3.

Enhanced antitumor effects and survival in mice: schematic presentation. Antitumor efficacy and cancer-specific survival of humanized mice receiving injections of the unarmed control virus Ad3-hTERT-E1A (A, B) or Ad3-hTERT-CMV-hCD40L (C, D). PC3-MM2 tumors were implanted subcutaneously in immunodeficient SCID mice. To humanize the mice, 10 × 10e6 PBMCs were injected intravenously on day 0. Viruses were injected at 1 × 10e8 VP and 1 × 10e6 DCs were injected intratumorally three times as shown in the schematic presentation. Dotted lines are mock and PBMCs plus DC treated, and full lines are PBMCs plus adenovirus or PBMCs plus adenovirus plus DC treated groups. Note that the experiments performed with armed and unarmed viruses shared the same control group. Tumor growth was monitored every other day. Virotherapy with Ad3-hTERT-CMV-hCD40L acts as an enabler of DC therapy. Note: mice received DCs in these parts of the experiment. Data are presented as mean ± SEM (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01).