The treatment of
cancer has evolved significantly in recent years with a strong focus on
immunotherapy. Encapsulated
Cell Therapy (ECT) for
immunotherapy-based anti-
cancer treatment is a unique niche within this landscape, where molecules such as signaling factors and
antibodies produced from cells are encapsulated within a vehicle, with a host amount of benefits in terms of treatment efficacy and reduced side effects. However, traditional ECTs generally lie in two extremes; either a macro scale vehicle is utilized, resulting in a retrievable system but with limited diffusion and surface area, or a micro scale vehicle is utilized, resulting in a system that has excellent diffusion and surface area but is unretrievable in the event of side effects occurring, which greatly compromises the biosafety of patients. In this study we adapted our patented and novel electrospun
Polysulfone (PSF) Microtube Array Membranes (
MTAMs) as a 'middle' approach to the above dilemma, which possess excellent diffusion and surface area while being retrievable. Hybridoma cells were encapsulated within the PSF
MTAMs, where they produced CEACAM6
antibodies to be used in the suppression of
cancer cell line A549, MDA-MB-468 and PC 3 (control). In vitro and in vivo studies revealed excellent cell viability of hybridoma cells with continuous secretion of CEACAM6
antibodies which suppressed the MDA-MB-468 throughout the entire 21 days of experiment. Such outcome suggested that the PSF
MTAMs were not only an excellent three-dimensional (3D) cell culture substrate but potentially also an excellent vehicle for the application in ECT systems. Future research needs to include a long term in vivo >6 months study before it can be used in clinical applications.