Engineering and Characterization of Oncolytic Vaccinia Virus Expressing Truncated Herpes Simplex Virus Thymidine Kinase.

ABSTRACT: Oncolytic viruses are a promising class of anti-tumor agents; however, concerns regarding uncontrolled viral replication have led to the development of a replication-controllable oncolytic vaccinia virus (OVV). The engineering involves replacing the native thymidine kinase (VV-tk) gene, in a Wyeth strain vaccinia backbone, with the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-tk) gene, which allows for viral replication control via ganciclovir (GCV, an antiviral/cytotoxic pro-drug). Adding the wild-type HSV-tk gene might disrupt the tumor selectivity of VV-tk deleted OVVs; therefore, only engineered viruses that lacked tk activity were selected as candidates. Ultimately, OTS-412, which is an OVV containing a mutant HSV-tk, was chosen for characterization regarding tumor selectivity, sensitiv

SUBMITTER: Islam SMBU 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7016767 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature