Brooklyn Borts
Research Mentor: Suhe Wang
Mentor Department: Internal Medince, Medicine
Author(s): Brooklyn Borts, Shengzhuang Tang, Peter Cao, Suhe Wang
Session: Session 1 (9:00 AM – 9:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Poster 69
Abstract
HER2-positive breast cancer is one of the most aggressive and common types of breast cancer and accounts for around 20% of breast cancers. Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is a tumor antigen associated with tumor growth. HER2 is often used as a target molecule in existing therapies, such as Herceptin; however, patients often develop resistance. Histotripsy, a non-invasive ultrasound therapy, has the potential to work in conjunction with other therapies to treat breast cancer successfully. Histotripsy treatment delivers a series of microsecond ultrasound pulses, causing cavitation. This study focuses on the tumor-associated antigen release after histotripsy treatment. An orthotopic C57BL/6 transgenic mouse model using the E0771E2 breast cancer cell line with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) was used to prove the potential for histotripsy as a breast cancer treatment. In this model, the mice used were engineered to express the human HER2 gene, allowing us to use immunocompetent mice. This allows us to mimic clinical trials and create more relevant data. In this study, we proved HER2 transgenic mice expression of the HER2 transgene was confirmed by PCR. 70% E0771E2 expression of HER2 cells was measured via Flow cytometry. The protein released from histotripsy was identified with Western blot, and the effect of histotripsy treatment was confirmed through direct measurements of tumor size. It was then observed that histotripsy inhibited the tumor growth by 54%. These primary studies displayed that histotripsy could have provoked a release of the HER2 antigen, making a combination of immunotherapy and histotripsy a possible treatment.
