Current Cancer Drug Targets - Volume 18, Issue 2, 2018

Oncolytic viruses are a promising anti-cancer platform, achieving significant pre-clinical and clinical milestones in recent years. A full arsenal of selective, safe, and effective viruses has been developed with some emerging pre-clinical research focusing on optimizing these therapies in the face of remaining challenges, both in the bloodstream and in the tumour microenvironment. Herein we discuss the recent progress in pr Read More

Adenovirus is one of the most commonly used vectors for gene therapy and it is the first approved virus-derived drug for treatment of cancer. As an oncolytic agent, it can induce lysis of infected cells, but it can also engage the immune system, promoting activation and maturation of antigen- presenting cells (APCs). In essence, oncolysis combined with the associated immunostimulatory actions result in a “personalized in situ v Read More

Novel treatment modalities are rapidly advancing toward clinical use as many malignant cancers still remain incurable. Adenovirus (Ad) in particular has been extensively researched as a promising alternative to conventional cancer therapy in the past decades. Although Ad has demonstrated promising therapeutic outcome and cancer specificity in preclinical models, its therapeutic efficacy in clinical trials is still i Read More

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive malignant disease and the efficacy of current treatments for unresectable diseases is quite limited despite recent advances. Gene therapy /virotherapy strategies may provide new options for the treatment of various cancers including pancreatic cancer. Oncolytic adenovirus shows an antitumoral effect via its intratumoral amplification and strong cytocidal effect in a variety of cancers an Read More

Oncolytic virotherapy is a novel therapeutic modality for malignant diseases that exploits selective viral replication in cancer cells. Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a promising agent for oncolytic virotherapy due to its broad cell tropism and the identification of mutations that favor its replication in tumor over normal cells. However, these attenuating mutations also tend to limit the potency of current oncolytic HSV vectors that have Read More

The oncolytic viruses now hold a promise of new therapeutic strategy for cancer. Its concept has inspired a wave of commercial research and development activities for the products of this category in China since 1998. The first commercialized oncolytic virus product in the world, Oncorine (H101), developed by Shanghai Sunway Biotech Co., Ltd since 1999, was approved by Chinese SFDA in November, 2005 for nasopharyn Read More

Attenuated Edmonston lineage measles virus (MV-Edm) vaccine strains can preferentially infect and lyse a wide variety of cancer cells. Oncolytic MV-Edm derivatives are genetically engineered to express the human carcinoembryonic antigen (MV-CEA virus) or the human sodium iodide symporter (MV-NIS virus) and are currently being tested in clinical trials against ovarian cancer, glioblastoma multiforme, multiple myelo Read More

Advanced liver cancers and biliary cancers represent diseases with dismal prognosis because of frequent local invasion and metastasis. Effective therapeutic agents for these cancers have not been established. Oncolytic viruses (OVs) constitute a novel class of promising, selective anticancer agents and recent studies have elucidated their unique features. Moreover, clinical trials are demonstrating promising results. Numerou Read More

Oncolytic viruses, which include both naturally occurring wild-type viruses/attenuated viruses and genetically modified viruses, have recently been developed for use in innovative cancer therapies. Genetically modified oncolytic viruses possess the unique ability to replicate conditionally as a unique gene therapy product. Since oncolytic viruses exhibit prolonged persistence in patients, viral shedding and transmission to third p Read More

Background: Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a major determinant of cancer metastasis and is closely linked with TGF-β1. Intracellular proteins, including E. Cadherin, N. Cadherin and Vimentin are directly related to EMT that affect cell migration and adhesion; on the other hand, non muscle myosin (NM) has a central role in cytokinesis, migration and adhesion. Objective: We aimed to explore the association of EMT an Read More