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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Acoust.

Sec. Ultrasound Technologies

Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/facou.2025.1616297

Enhancing Tumoricidal Effects of Radiation Therapy with Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound in Murine Breast Cancers

Provisionally accepted
Michelle  SchumacherMichelle SchumacherClaudia  Gutierrez ChavezClaudia Gutierrez ChavezBeata  MalachowskaBeata MalachowskaSanjay  PandeySanjay PandeyTatyana  TchaikovskayaTatyana TchaikovskayaSaurabh  SinghSaurabh SinghSteve  BarrySteve BarryRodney  MacedoRodney Macedo*Chandan  GuhaChandan Guha*
  • Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Focal cancer therapies fail to cure metastatic disease. Our prior studies indicated that Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound (LOFU) boosts antitumoral immunity in murine melanoma and prostate cancer. We hypothesized that LOFU, combined with radiation therapy (RT), could stimulate an immunogenic tumor microenvironment (TME) in murine breast cancers, potentially acting as an in-situ vaccine.We evaluated LOFU±RT in TSA and E0771 breast cancer models in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice, respectively, and measured intra-tumoral temperatures and gene expression to assess acoustic thermal stress using quantitative RT-PCR. Flow cytometry and gene expression showed that LOFU induced unfolded protein response pathway and heat shock protein RNA. LOFU modified the immune contexture in the TME of both tumor models, notably by increasing CD8+ T cell infiltration, including anti-gp70 CD8+ T cells, and reducing the RT-induced regulatory T cell response in TSA tumors.In conclusion, LOFU, as a non-ablative therapeutic, primes the TME and augments control of murine breast cancers by inducing tumor-specific adaptive immune responses.

Keywords: CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes, Immunomodulation, Tumor Microenvironment, Radiotherapy, Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound (LOFU)

Received: 22 Apr 2025; Accepted: 01 Aug 2025.

Copyright: Ā© 2025 Schumacher, Gutierrez Chavez, Malachowska, Pandey, Tchaikovskaya, Singh, Barry, Macedo and Guha. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Rodney Macedo, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City, United States
Chandan Guha, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City, United States

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