Oncolytic-adenovirus-expressed RNA interference for cancer therapy

Strategies to Develop Potent Oncolytic Viruses and Enhance Their Therapeutic Efficacy

Despite advancements in cancer therapy that have occurred over the past several decades, successful treatment of advanced malignancies remains elusive. Substantial resources and significant efforts have been directed toward the development of novel therapeutic modalities to improve patient outcomes. Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are emerging tools with unique characteristics that have attracted great interest in developing effective anticancer treatment. The original attraction was directed toward selective replication and cell-specific toxicity, two unique features that are either inherent to the virus or could be conferred by genetic engineering. However, recent advancements in the knowledge and understanding of OVs are shifting the therapeutic paradigm toward a greater focus on their immunomodulatory role. Nonetheless, there are still significant obstacles that remain to be overcome to enhance the efficiency of OVs as effective therapeutic modalities and potentially establish them as part of standard treatment regimens. In this review, we discuss advances in the design of OVs, strategies to enhance their therapeutic efficacy, functional translation into the clinical settings, and various obstacles that are still encountered in the efforts to establish them as effective anticancer treatments.

Delivery of cancer therapies by synthetic and bio-inspired nanovectors

BACKGROUND

As a complement to the clinical development of new anticancer molecules, innovations in therapeutic vectorization aim at solving issues related to tumor specificity and associated toxicities. Nanomedicine is a rapidly evolving field that offers various solutions to increase clinical efficacy and safety. MAIN: Here are presented the recent advances for different types of nanovectors of chemical and biological nature, to identify the best suited for translational research projects. These nanovectors include different types of chemically engineered nanoparticles that now come in many different flavors of 'smart' drug delivery systems. Alternatives with enhanced biocompatibility and a better adaptability to new types of therapeutic molecules are the cell-derived extracellular vesicles and micro-organism-derived oncolytic viruses, virus-like particles and bacterial minicells. In the first part of the review, we describe their main physical, chemical and biological properties and their potential for personalized modifications. The second part focuses on presenting the recent literature on the use of the different families of nanovectors to deliver anticancer molecules for chemotherapy, radiotherapy, nucleic acid-based therapy, modulation of the tumor microenvironment and immunotherapy.

CONCLUSION

This review will help the readers to better appreciate the complexity of available nanovectors and to identify the most fitting "type" for efficient and specific delivery of diverse anticancer therapies.

Expression of Oncolytic Adenovirus-Encoded RNAi Molecules Is Most Effective in a pri-miRNA Precursor Format

Oncolytic adenoviruses are being developed as new anti-cancer agents. Their efficacy can be improved by incorporating RNA interference (RNAi) molecules. RNAi molecules can be expressed in various precursor formats. The aim of this study was to determine the most effective format. To this end, we constructed three Δ24-type oncolytic adenoviruses, with human microRNA-1 (miR-1) expression cassettes in short hairpin RNA (shRNA), precursor microRNA (pre-miRNA), and primary miRNA (pri-miRNA) format, respectively. The viruses were compared for virus replication, mature miR-1 expression, and target gene silencing in cancer cells. Incorporation of the cassettes had only minor effects on virus replication. Mature miR-1 expression from the pri-miRNA format reached on average 100-fold higher levels than from the other two formats. This expression remained stable upon long-term virus propagation. Infection with the pri-miR-1-expressing virus silenced the validated miR-1 targets FOXP1 and MET. Drosha knockout almost completely abrogated mature miR-1 expression, confirming that processing of adenovirus-encoded pri-miR-1 was dependent on the host cell miRNA machinery. Using simple in vitro recombination cloning, a similar virus expressing miR-26b was made and shown to silence the validated miR-26b target PTGS2. We thus provide a platform for construction of oncolytic adenoviruses with high expression of RNAi molecules of choice.

Oncolytic Adenoviruses: Strategies for Improved Targeting and Specificity

Cancer is a major health problem. Most of the treatments exhibit systemic toxicity, as they are not targeted or specific to cancerous cells and tumors. Adenoviruses are very promising gene delivery vectors and have immense potential to deliver targeted therapy. Here, we review a wide range of strategies that have been tried, tested, and demonstrated to enhance the specificity of oncolytic viruses towards specific cancer cells. A combination of these strategies and other conventional therapies may be more effective than any of those strategies alone.

Oncolytic adenovirus armed with shRNA targeting MYCN gene inhibits neuroblastoma cell proliferation and in vivo xenograft tumor growth

PURPOSE

MYCN amplification and p53 inactivation are two typical characteristics of aggressive neuroblastomas and are strongly associated with cancer progression and treatment failure. In an effort to develop new therapeutic agents to treat the aggressive neuroblastomas, we constructed ZD55-shMYCN, an oncolytic adenovirus ZD55 carrying short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting MYCN gene, and investigated the effects on proliferation of the p53-null and MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma cell line LA1-55N in vitro and in vivo by ZD55-shMYCN.

METHODS

In this study, we used ZD55-shMYCN to treat p53-null and MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma cells. To confirm the ability of selective replication of the ZD55-shMYCN, we examined the expression of E1A protein by western blotting. We used quantitative real-time PCR analysis and western blotting analysis to determine the inhibitory effect of ZD55-shMYCN on MYCN expression. MTT [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] cell proliferation assay and xenograft mouse model were used to test the antigrowth efficacy of ZD55-shMYCN.

RESULTS

The results showed that ZD55-shMYCN selectively replicated and significantly downregulated the MYCN expression in LA1-55N cells. ZD55-shMYCN effectively inhibited the proliferation in LA1-55N cells in vitro and significantly inhibited tumor growth in vivo xenograft tumor in nude mice.

CONCLUSIONS

ZD55-shMYCN provides a novel agent for treating MYCN-amplified and p53-inactive aggressive neuroblastoma, representing a promising approach for further clinical development.

Adenovirus and miRNAs

Adenovirus infection has a tremendous impact on the cellular silencing machinery. Adenoviruses express high amounts of non-coding virus associated (VA) RNAs able to saturate key factors of the RNA interference (RNAi) processing pathway, such as Exportin 5 and Dicer. Furthermore, a proportion of VA RNAs is cleaved by Dicer into viral microRNAs (mivaRNAs) that can saturate Argonaute, an essential protein for miRNA function. Thus, processing and function of cellular miRNAs is blocked in adenoviral-infected cells. However, viral miRNAs actively target the expression of cellular genes involved in relevant functions such as cell proliferation, DNA repair or RNA regulation. Interestingly, the cellular silencing machinery is active at early times post-infection and can be used to control the adenovirus cell cycle. This is relevant for therapeutic purposes against adenoviral infections or when recombinant adenoviruses are used as vectors for gene therapy. Manipulation of the viral genome allows the use of adenoviral vectors to express therapeutic miRNAs or to be silenced by the RNAi machinery leading to safer vectors with a specific tropism. This article is part of a "Special Issue entitled:MicroRNAs in viral gene regulation".

Adenoviral delivered eGFP-intron splicing system for multiple gene RNAi

An eGFP-intron splicing system that allows for co-ordinated expression of up to four siRNAs from a single adenoviral vector has been developed. In this splicing structure the intron, embedded by a multiple miR30-based shRNAs, is located between two incomplete eGFP domains which require successful splicing for functionality. To prove the principle of the method, an adenoviral vector delivering four transcripts targeting survivin, XIAP, Hec1, and VEGF was developed which enabled the knockdown of target genes by 70, 70, 54 and 44%, respectively, in HeLa cells. This is the first report of multi-siRNA engineering technology in the context of adenoviral vector which would enable concomitant knockdown of tumor-related target genes. The results provide a strategy for gene function analysis and cancer gene therapy.

A novel approach to overcome temozolomide resistance in glioma and melanoma: Inactivation of MGMT by gene therapy

Malignant glioma is the most common primary brain tumor. Malignant melanoma is the most malignant of skin tumor. The two malignancies are poorly responsive to conventional treatment regimens such as chemotherapy. Temozolomide (TMZ) is a DNA-alkylating agent used for the treatment of glioma, astrocytoma, and melanoma. Resistance to alkylating agents such as TMZ correlates with increased expression of DNA repair protein O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT). Several studies in animal models have demonstrated that decreasing MGMT level with gene therapy could overcome TMZ resistance and enhance tumor cell death. In the present review, we provide an overview of recent advances in this field.