[Genetic, immunological, and pharmacological strategies to generate improved oncolytic viruses]

Since over a century, medical literature has reported cases of viral infections leading to tumour regression. This phenomenon, now understood, can be exploited for cancer therapy. It involves viruses defined as "oncolytic". These viruses, either wild-type or genetically engineered, replicate preferentially in malignant cells. They induce tumour regression through various mechanisms including direct cell lysis and stimulation of an anti-tumour immune response. Several oncolytic viruses have reached late-stage clinical investigation and could be approved soon for treating certain neoplasms. While already promising, there is still room for improvement and various genetic, immunological, and pharmacological strategies are currently under development to increase their therapeutic efficacy.

[Vesicular stomatitis virus in the fight against cancer]

Cancer is a complex disease that affects more and more people around the world. Unfortunately, existing treatments are only partially efficient and often induce major side effects. Thus, the use of viruses to selectively kill cancer cells is a new promising therapeutic approach. Recently, VSV has been used in oncolytic virotherapy because of its capacity to preferentially infect most human tumor cells. However, despite the availability of good oncolytic VSV mutants, the large variability of tumor cell types and the multiple ways in which they can evade viral infection suggests that therapeutic combinations of various viruses will be necessary to efficiently treat most cancers. A better understanding of the infection mechanisms and immune system recruitment by oncolytic viruses will be of great value for the development of safe and efficient strategies for cancer treatment.