Human HCC cell lines (BEL-7402, SMMC-7721 and QGY-7703) do not express CD80 molecules, although they express MHC class I molecules and ICAM-1. HCC's poor immunogenicity may therefore be due to lack of CD80 molecules. This study first investigated whether CD80 molecules could provide minimal co-stimulatory signal for establishing an efficient anti-tumor immunity in HCC and second, whether the transfection of CD80 into the BEL-7402 cell line could induce T cell activation for targeting other HCC cell lines expressing shared common antigens. The transfection of cDNA encoding CD80 into ICAM-1+ HCC BEL-7402 cells was confirmed by flow cytometrical analysis. The CD80-tranfected cells could enhance the immunogenicity of BEL-7402 cells as detected by T cell proliferation assay, and also activated the T cells at a higher proliferation rate comparing with the BEL-7402 cells transfected with vector only. The CD80-transfected cell line was also found able to activate T cells which subsequently induced cell lysis of SMMC-7721, QGY-7703 and parent BEL-7402 cell lines as detected by cytotoxicity assay. It can be concluded that the cytotoxicity was due to MHC class I restricted CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes, but not natural killer (NK) cells, since this cytotoxic effect could be blocked by anti-MHC class I antibody and the cytotoxicity was shown very low in NK-cell-sensitive K562 cell line. Electroporation of CD80 cDNA into human HCC cells could increase the expression of the functional CD80 molecules and enhance the immunogenicity of the genetically-modified HCC cells to activate T cells for targeting 3 HCC cell lines in an HLA-restricted manner.

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