Mechanisms that allow vaccination against an oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus-encoded transgene to enhance safety without abrogating oncolysis.

ABSTRACT: Vaccination can prevent viral infections via virus-specific T cells, among other mechanisms. A goal of oncolytic virotherapy is replication of oncolytic viruses (OVs) in tumors, so pre-existing T cell immunity against an OV-encoded transgene would seem counterproductive. We developed a treatment for melanomas by pre-vaccinating against an oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-encoded tumor antigen. Surprisingly, when the VSV-vectored booster vaccine was administered at the peak of the primary effector T cell response, oncolysis was not abrogated. We sought to determine how oncolysis was retained during a robust T cell response against the VSV-encoded transgene product. A murine melanoma model was used to identify two mechanisms that enable this phenomenon. First, tumor-infiltrating T

SUBMITTER: AuYeung AWK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8316323 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature