"Buy one get one free": armed viruses for the treatment of cancer cells and their microenvironment.
Oncolytic viral therapy is a promising biological therapy for the treatment of cancer. Recent advances in genetic engineering have facilitated the construction of custom-built oncolytic viruses that can be exquisitely targeted to tumors by exploiting each cancer's unique biology and their efficacy can be further enhanced by "arming" them with additional therapeutic genes. Such an approach allows the virus to unload its "therapeutic cargo" at the tumor site, thereby enhancing its anti-neoplastic properties. While several clever strategies have been recently described using genes that can induce cellular apoptosis/suicide and/or facilitate tumor/virus imaging, viruses armed with genes that also affect the tumor microenvironment present an exciting and promising approach to therapy. In this review we discuss recently developed oncolytic viruses armed with genes encoding for angiostatic factors, inflammatory cytokines, or proteases that modulate the extracellular matrix to regulate tumor vascularization, anti-tumor immune responses and viral spread throughout the solid tumor.
Dardinger Laboratory for Neuro-oncology and Neurosciences, Department of Neurological Surgery, James Comprehensive Cancer Center and The Ohio State University Medical Center, 400 West 12th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210,USA. Balveen.kaur@osumc.edu
Balveen
B
Kaur
Timothy P
TP
Cripe
E Antonio
EA
Chiocca
D000276:Adjuvants, Immunologic / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000098:blood supply / Q000628:therapy*; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000628:therapy; D050130:Oncolytic Virotherapy
D000276:Adjuvants, Immunologic