Use of the XRCC2 promoter for in vivo cancer diagnosis and therapy

The homologous recombination (HR) pathway is a promising target for cancer therapy as it is frequently upregulated in tumors. One such strategy is to target tumors with cancer-specific, hyperactive promoters of HR genes including RAD51 and RAD51C. However, the promoter size and the delivery method have limited its potential clinical applications. Here we identified the ~2.1 kb promoter of XRCC2, similar to ~6.5 kb RAD51 promoter, as also hyperactivated in cancer cells. We found that XRCC2 expression is upregulated in nearly all types of cancers, to a degree comparable to RAD51 while much higher than RAD51C. Further study demonstrated that XRCC2 promoter is hyperactivated in cancer cell lines, and diphtheria toxin A (DTA) gene driven by XRCC2 promoter specifically eliminates cancer cells. Moreover, lentiviral vectors containing XRCC2 promoter driving firefly luciferase or DTA were created and applied to subcutaneous HeLa xenograft mice. We demonstrated that the pXRCC2-luciferase lentivirus is an effective tool for in vivo cancer visualization. Most importantly, pXRCC2-DTA lentivirus significantly inhibited the growth of HeLa xenografts in comparison to the control group. In summary, our results strongly indicate that virus-mediated delivery of constructs built upon the XRCC2 promoter holds great potential for tumor diagnosis and therapy.