Bovine herpesvirus 4 induces apoptosis of human carcinoma cell lines in vitro and in vivo.
The idea of using oncolytic viruses for the treatment of cancers was proposed a century ago. During the last two decades, viruses able to replicate specifically in cancer cells and to induce their lysis were identified and were genetically modified to improve their viro-oncolytic properties. More recently, a new approach consisting of inducing selective apoptosis in cancer cells through viral infection has been proposed; this approach has been called viro-oncoapoptosis. In the present study, we report the property of bovine herpesvirus-4 (BoHV-4) to induce, in vitro and in vivo, apoptosis of some human carcinomas. This conclusion relies on the following observations: (a) In vitro, BoHV-4 infection induced apoptosis of A549 and OVCAR carcinoma cell lines in a time- and dose-dependent manner. (b) Apoptosis was induced by the expression of an immediate-early or an early BoHV-4 gene, but did not require viral replication. (c) Cell treatment with caspase inhibitors showed that apoptosis induced by BoHV-4 relied mainly on caspase-10 activation. (d) Infection of cocultures of A549 or OVCAR cells mixed with human 293 cells (in which BoHV-4 does not induce apoptosis) showed that BoHV-4 specifically eradicated A549 or OVCAR cancer cells from the cocultures. (e) Finally, in vivo experiments done with nude mice showed that BoHV-4 intratumoral injections reduced drastically the growth of preestablished A549 xenografts. Taken together, these results suggest that BoHV-4 may have potential as a viro-oncoapoptotic agent for the treatment of some human carcinomas. Moreover, further identification of BoHV-4 proapoptotic gene(s) and the cellular pathways targeted by this or these gene(s) could lead to the design of new cancer therapeutic strategies.
Gillet
Laurent
L
Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
Dewals
Benjamin
B
Farnir
Frédéric
F
de Leval
Laurence
L
Vanderplasschen
Alain
A
D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology*; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy* / Q000821:virology*; D053455:Caspase 10; D020169:Caspases / Q000378:metabolism; D002417:Cattle; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D018920:Coculture Techniques; D004285:Dogs; D005260:Female; D026021:Herpesvirus 4, Bovine / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D023041:Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays
D053455:Caspase 10; D020169:Caspases; C506438:CASP10 protein, human