Use of patient-derived organotypic tumor spheroids for testing of viral vector gene therapy in combination with checkpoint blockade.

ABSTRACT: Checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized cancer treatment, but a significant proportion of patients do not respond to these therapies, underscoring the need for alternative strategies. Although gene therapy has made substantial strides, its application in solid tumors remains underexplored, with limited treatments approved. Here, we further investigated a gene therapy approach with non-replicating adenoviral vectors encoding the alternate reading frame (ARF) and interferon beta (IFNb) and tested it in a clinically relevant setting. We previously showed that this combined gene therapy induces immunogenic cell death in melanoma models, and now, we utilize patient-derived organotypic tumor spheroids (PDOTS), a model that closely recapitulates the immune environment of tumors, to test its eff

SUBMITTER: Domingues ACM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11874566 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature