Oncolytic adenoviral vectors that express immunostimulatory transgenes are currently being evaluated in clinic. Preclinical testing of these vectors has thus far been limited to immunodeficient xenograft tumor models since human adenoviruses do not replicate effectively in murine tumor cells. The effect of the immunostimulatory transgene on overall virus potency can therefore not be readily ass...

Over 6 million dogs are diagnosed with cancer in the USA each year. Treatment options for many of these patients are limited. It is important that the veterinary and scientific communities begin to explore novel treatment protocols for dogs with cancer. Oncolytic viral therapy is a promising treatment option that may prove to be relatively inexpensive and effective against several types of canc...

Future cancer therapies will be molecular cures. They will correct, block or destroy cancer cells by targeting molecular changes that lead to carcinogenesis. Destroying cancer cells can be done using oncolytic viruses. By blocking antibody mediated neutralization of oncolytic viruses, Herpes simplex virus type 1 glycoproteins E and I could be used in the adjuvant treatment of cancer for improvi...

6. McKee, TD, Grandi, P, Mok, W, Alexandrakis, G, Insin, N, Zimmer, JP et al. (2006). Degradation of fi brillar collagen in a human melanoma xenograft improves the effi cacy of an oncolytic herpes simplex virus vector. Cancer Res 66: 2509–2513. 7. Wang, Y, Hallden, G, Hill, R, Anand, A, Liu, TC, Francis, J et al. (2003). E3 gene manipulations affect oncolytic adenovirus activity in immunocompet...

The oncolytic viruses that were discovered in the late of 19th century have been recently considered as an effective anti-cancer therapy due to its selective replication activity in cancer cells. Currently, at least nine types of virus have been studied in clinical trials for treating a variety of cancers including T-VEC and Reolysin. In this review, we focus on historical researches of oncolyt...

Oncolytic adenoviruses are an emerging treatment option for advanced and refractory cancer. Such patients are often treated with corticosteroids to ameliorate tumor associated symptoms. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether safety is affected by immunosuppression possibly induced by corticosteroids. Concurrent low-dose cyclophosphamide, appealing for its immunomodulatory effects, could also...

Experimental evolution has been used for various biotechnological applications including protein and microbial cell engineering, but less commonly in the field of oncolytic virotherapy. Here, we sought to adapt a rapidly evolving RNA virus to cells deficient for the tumor suppressor gene p53, a hallmark of cancer cells. To achieve this goal, we established four independent evolution lines of th...

Systemic adenoviral delivery into tumors is inefficient because of liver sequestration of intravenously administered virus. One potential solution for improving bioavailability is the use of carrier cells such as human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which have been suggested to have inherent tumor tropism. Here we investigated the capacity of capsid-modified adenoviruses to infect and replicate...

Oncolytic viruses are replication competent, tumor selective and lyse cancer cells. Their potential for anti-cancer therapy is based upon the concept that selective intratumoral replication will produce a potent anti-tumor effect and possibly bystander or remote cell killing, whilst minimizing normal tissue toxicity. Viruses may be naturally oncolytic or be engineered for oncolytic activity, an...

The rapid growth of tumors depends upon elevated levels of dNTPs, and while dNTP concentrations are tightly regulated in normal cells, this control is often lost in transformed cells. This feature of cancer cells has been used to advantage to develop oncolytic DNA viruses. DNA viruses employ many different mechanisms to increase dNTP levels in infected cells, because the low concentration of dN...