The novel role of macrophage in eliminating metastatic breast cancer by IAP antagonist

The small molecular IAP antagonist kills the cancer cells in TNF- dependent manner. Thus, the IAP antagonist in combination with TNF effectively eliminates not only early but also late stage metastases in bone and lung from human breast cancer cells in animal model. Administrating TNF can result in severe side-effects in human. Tumor-associated macrophage is the most abundant support cells of breast cancer and one of major sources of TNF. Blocking TNF or depletion of macrophages attenuates the effect of the IAP antagonist to treat bone metastasis from breast cancer. Thus, transfer of adoptive macrophage that targets the cancer cells to deliver TNF locally in combination with an IAP antagonist will be a novel strategy to treat metastatic breast cancer.

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