New strategy of delivering vaccine antigens along with adjuvants are the crucial factors that should be taken into consideration when designing combinatorial therapies for cancer treatment. This study has proved that administration of propranolol, as an adjuvant, with tumor lysate vaccine suppresses tumor growth and modifies cytokine patterns in splenocytes.

Propranolol (Pro), a non-specific β-adrenergic blocking drug, competitively prevents the binding of catecholamines to receptors and suppresses cancer cells. The anti-tumor activity of propranolol has been proved in different kinds of cancers. In this study, we assessed the adjuvant activity of propranolol combined with a tumor vaccine model on the immunological parameters of breast tumor-bearing mice. Breast tumor pieces were implanted into the flank of inbred BALB/C female mice from stock mice. Tumor-bearing mice were treated with tumor antigen lysate vaccine and propranolol/Vaccine (Pro/Vac) combination (as treatment groups), propranolol and PBS (as control groups) for 5 consecutive days, every 12 h. Moreover, all experimental groups received vaccine for three times with one-week interval via s.c injection. After immunization courses, spleens of tumor-bearing mice were removed and dissected, cell suspension was stimulated in vitro, and the cytokine levels in supernatant of splenocytes were measured via commercial ELISA kits. Compared with the vaccine group, immunization with tumor lysate in combination with propranolol significantly increased IL-2, IL-4, IL-12, IL-17, and IFN-γ cytokines. Considering the suppression of tumor growth, propranolol seems to be a potent immunomodulator capable of inducing cellular immune responses against breast cancer.