Gene therapy with dominant-negative Stat3 suppresses growth of the murine melanoma B16 tumor in vivo.

Whereas signal transducers and activators of transcription were originally discovered as mediators of normal cytokine signaling, constitutive activation of certain signal transducer and activator of transcription proteins, including Stat3, has been found in increasing numbers of human cancers. Recently, a causal role for Stat3 activation in oncogenesis has been demonstrated, suggesting that Stat3 represents a novel target for cancer therapy. We report here that in vitro expression of a Stat3 variant with dominant-negative properties, Stat3beta, induced cell death in murine B16 melanoma cells that harbored activated Stat3. By contrast, expression of Stat3beta had no effect on normal fibroblasts or the Stat3-negative murine tumor MethA, suggesting that only tumor cells with activated Stat3 have become dependent on this pathway for survival. Significantly, gene therapy by electroinjection of the Stat3beta expression vector into preexisting B16 tumors caused inhibition of tumor growth as well as tumor regression. This Stat3beta-induced antitumor effect is associated with apoptosis of the B16 tumor cells in vivo. These findings demonstrate for the first time that interfering with Stat3 signaling induces potent antitumor activity in vivo and thus identify Stat3 as a potential molecular target for therapy of human cancers harboring activated Stat3.