A Strategy for Cultivation of Retargeted Oncolytic Herpes Simplex Viruses in Non-cancer Cells.

ABSTRACT: The oncolytic herpes simplex virus (HSV) that has been approved for clinical practice and those HSVs in clinical trials are attenuated viruses, often with the neurovirulence gene γ134.5 and additional genes deleted. One strategy to engineer nonattenuated oncolytic HSVs consists of retargeting the viral tropism to a cancer-specific receptor of choice, exemplified by HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2), which is present in breast, ovary, and other cancers, and in detargeting from the natural receptors. Because the HER2-retargeted HSVs strictly depend on this receptor for infection, the viruses employed in preclinical studies were cultivated in HER2-positive cancer cells. The production of clinical-grade viruses destined for humans should avoid the use of cancer cells. Here, we en

SUBMITTER: Leoni V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5411604 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature