Effect of electrically mediated intratumor and intramuscular delivery of a plasmid encoding IFN alpha on visible B16 mouse melanomas.

Interferon alpha may be used as a single agent therapy for metastatic malignant melanoma or as an adjuvant to chemotherapy. Delivery of interferon alpha by gene therapy offers an alternative to recombinant protein therapy. Electrically mediated delivery enhances plasmid expression in a number of tissues, for instance skin, liver, muscle and tumors including melanomas. Here we compare the effect of delivery of a plasmid encoding mouse interferon alpha on growth of visible B16 mouse melanomas following electrically mediated delivery to muscle or directly to the tumor. Intratumoral delivery of interferon alpha plasmid not only slows melanoma growth, but induces complete, long term, regression. This effect was not observed after intramuscular delivery.