Abstract
Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells were isolated and proliferation from human peripheral blood and cultured in appropriate growth medium. The biological characteristics of CIK cells were further determined by the characterization of surface markers by flow cytometry. CIK cells inhibited the proliferation of human lung adenocarcinoma NCL-H157 cells. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression was down-regulated in CIK cells co-cultured with NCL-H157 cells by western blotting analysis. Furthermore, in comparison with cells untreated by CIK, the NCL-H157 had a lower proliferation capacity. We proposed that the pharmacological mechanisms of NCL-H157 promoted by CIK can be estimated possibly with different biological significance that can be ascribed to down-regulated VEGF expression in vitro. The results suggest that the VEGF pathway guides developmental inhibiting of NCL-H157, and we speculate that the function of VEGF pathways is to guide NCL-H157 to inhibition by abundant CIK.