Abstract
Oncolytic virus (OV) immunotherapy is characterized by viruses which specifically target cancer cells and cause their cytolysis. They provide a unique and promising new tool for the eradication of cancer as they interact with and affect the tumor microenvironment (TME), vasculature, and immune system. Advancements of genetic engineering have allowed for these viruses to be armed in such a way to have enhanced targeting, strong immunomodulation properties, and an ability to modify the TME. However, there are still major limitations in their use, mostly due to difficulties in delivering the viral particles to the tumors and in ensuring that the immunomodulatory properties are able to stimulate the host immune response to mount a complete response. Using novel delivery systems and using OVs as a complementary therapy in a combinatorial treatment have shown some significant successes. In this review, we discuss the major issues and difficulties in using OVs as anti-tumor agents and some of the strategies put in place so far to overcome these limitations.
Key points
• Oncolytic viruses (OVs) infect cancer cells and cause their cytolysis.
• The major limitations in using OVs as anti-tumor therapy were discussed.
• The potential strategies to overcome these limitations were summarized.
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18 June 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-021-11335-6
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Funding
This work was supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. No. LY17H160062 to HYP), Zhejiang Provincial Medical and Healthy Science and Technology Projects (No. WKJ-ZJ-1710 to HYP, 2019KY248 to PYH), Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Projects (No. LGF19H160026 to XMF), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81672430 to X.Z.M, 81602706 to S.B.W).
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Hu, PY., Fan, XM., Zhang, YN. et al. The limiting factors of oncolytic virus immunotherapy and the approaches to overcome them. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 104, 8231–8242 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10802-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10802-w