Xenogeneic cell therapy provides a novel potential therapeutic option for cancers by restoring tissue function, repairing cancer wound and reviving anti-tumor immune responses

Chi-Ping Huang, Chi-Cheng Chen, Chih-Rong Shyr

Conventional cancer treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy, not only destruct tumors, but also injure the normal tissues, resulting in limited efficacy. Recent advances in cancer therapy have aimed at changing the host milieu of cancer against its development and progression by targeting tumor microenvironment and host immune system to eradicate tumors. To the host body, tumors arise in tissues. They impair the normal healthy tissue physiological function, become chronically inflamed and develop non-healing or overhealing wounds as well as drive immuno-suppressive activity to escape immunity attack. Therefore, the rational therapeutic strategies for cancers should treat both the tumors and the host body for the best efficacy to turn the deadly malignant disease to a manageable one. Xenogeneic cell therapy (i.e. cellular xenotransplantation) using cells from non-human source animals such as pigs has shown promising results in animal studies and clinical xenotransplantation in restoring lost tissue physiological function and repairing the wound. However, the major hurdle of xenogeneic cell therapy is the host immunological barriers that are induced by transplanted xenogeneic cells to reject xenografts. Possibly, the immunological barriers of xenogeneic cells could be used as immunological boosters to activate the host immune system. Here, we hypothesized that because of the biological properties of xenogeneic cells to the recipient humans, the transplantation of xenogeneic cells (i.e. cellular xenotransplantation) into cancer patients' organs of the same origin with developed tumors may restore the impaired function of organs, repair the wound, reduce chronic inflammation and revive the anti-tumor immunity to achieve beneficial outcome for patients.