Deletion of Apoptosis Inhibitor F1L in Vaccinia Virus Increases Safety and Oncolysis for Cancer Therapy.

ABSTRACT: Vaccinia virus (VACV) possesses a great safety record as a smallpox vaccine and has been intensively used as an oncolytic virus against various types of cancer over the past decade. Different strategies were developed to make VACV safe and selective to cancer cells. Leading clinical candidates, such as Pexa-Vec, are attenuated through deletion of the viral thymidine kinase (TK) gene, which limits virus growth to replicate in cancer tissue. However, tumors are not the only tissues whose metabolic activity can overcome the lack of viral TK. In this study, we sought to further increase the tumor-specific replication and oncolytic potential of Copenhagen strain VACV ΔTK. We show that deletion of the anti-apoptosis viral gene F1L not only increases the safety of the Copenhagen ΔTK virus but als

SUBMITTER: Pelin A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6695278 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature