Inducing apoptosis effects and mechanism investigation of CIK cells against MGC - 803 gastric cancer cell lines

Objective To study the anti-proliferation and inducing apoptosis effects of cytokine-induced killer cells-CIK cells for MGC-803 gastric cancer celL lines and to probe its under1ying mechanism. Methods Inducing apoptosis of CIK cells on MGC-803 gastric cancer cell line was evaluated by TUNEL methods; The positive expression of Bcl-2 and Bax were determined by immunocytochemistry (ICC). The expression changes of relating-apoptosis gene proteins were deeply studied.Results TUNEL showed that the cells of control group were not to stained or stained average light blue and the cells of experiment group became small and nucleus were dyed deeply blue. The apoptosis rate of CIK experiment group increased in 5～14 hours and declined in 14～24 hours. The apoptotic rate of CIK experiment groups have significant difference compared with control (P 0.01); Immunocytochemistry showed that expression of p53?pl6?C-myc?Bcl-2 protein in CIK experiment group inclined and Bax protein increased when time was continued and there were significant difference compared with control (P 0.01).Conclusion CIK cells induce apoptosis of MGC-803 gastric cancer cell line in early phase and induce necrocytosis in late phase. One of the mechanisms is that it can inhance Bax proteins expression and decline Bcl-2 proteins expression of tumor cells.