Suppression of autophagic genes sensitizes CUG2-overexpressing A549 human lung cancer cells to oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus-induced apoptosis

The relationship between autophagy and respiratory viruses

Respiratory viruses have caused severe global health problems and posed essential challenges to the medical community. In recent years, the role of autophagy as a critical process in cells in viral respiratory diseases has been noticed. One of the vital catabolic biological processes in the body is autophagy. Autophagy contributes to energy recovery by targeting and selectively directing foreign microorganisms, organelles, and senescent intracellular proteins to the lysosome for degradation and phagocytosis. Activation or suppression of autophagy is often initiated when foreign pathogenic organisms such as viruses infect cells. Because of its antiviral properties, several viruses may escape or resist this process by encoding viral proteins. Viruses can also use autophagy to enhance their replication or prolong the persistence of latent infections. Here, we provide an overview of autophagy and respiratory viruses such as coronavirus, rhinovirus, parainfluenza, influenza, adenovirus, and respiratory syncytial virus, and examine the interactions between them and the role of autophagy in the virus-host interaction process and the resulting virus replication strategy.

Oncolytic viruses in lung cancer treatment: a review article

Lung cancer has a high morbidity rate worldwide due to its resistance to therapy. So new treatment options are needed to improve the outcomes of lung cancer treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of oncolytic viruses (OVs) as a new type of cancer treatment. In this study, 158 articles from PubMed and Scopus from 1994 to 2022 were reviewed on the effectiveness of OVs in the treatment of lung cancer. The oncolytic properties of eight categories of OVs and their interactions with treatment options were investigated. OVs can be applied as a promising immunotherapy option, as they are reproduced selectively in different types of cancer cells, cause tumor cell lysis and trigger efficient immune responses.

Investigating CENPW as a Novel Biomarker Correlated With the Development and Poor Prognosis of Breast Carcinoma

Breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA) is a carcinoma with a fairly high incidence, and the therapeutic schedules are generally surgery and chemotherapy. However, chemotherapeutic drugs tend to produce serious toxic side effects, which lead to the cessation of treatment. Therefore, it is imperative to develop treatment strategies that are more effective and have fewer side effects at the genetic level. Centromeric protein W (CENPW) is an oncogene that plays an important part in nucleosome assembly. To date, no studies have reported the prognostic significance of CENPW in breast carcinoma. In this study, we verified that CENPW expression is up-regulated in breast carcinoma and positively associated with the level of immune cell infiltration. The clinicopathological characteristics further suggest that CENPW expression is correlated with a worse prognosis of breast carcinoma. Interestingly, the CENPW mutation contributes to the poor prognosis. Next, we discovered that the genes interacting with CENPW are mainly concentrated in the cell cycle pathway, and CENPW is co-expressed with CDCA7, which is also highly expressed in breast carcinoma and leads to a worse prognosis. Our subsequent studies verified that knockdown of CENPW significantly inhibits the proliferation and migration of breast carcinoma cells and promotes their apoptosis rate. Notably, inhibition of CEMPW sensitizes breast cancer cells to chemotherapeutic drugs that have been found to induce cell cycle arrest. In summary, these results provide extensive data and experimental evidence that CENPW can serve as a novel predictor of breast cancer and may act as a prospective therapeutic target.

The Role of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Matrix Protein in Autophagy in the Breast Cancer

BACKGROUND

Breast cancer is one of the most difficult malignancies to treat. Therapeutics is used to target and kill the cancer cells. Non-human oncolytic viruses have the ability to cause cell death directly to cancers. The objective here was to investigate the role of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) Matrix (M) protein in autophagy in the breast cancer cell line.

METHODS

Two different VSV wild type and mutant (M51R) M protein constructs were produced. Breast cancer cell line BT-20 was transfected by either wild type or mutant vectors. Transfection efficiency was measured using a fluorescent microscopy. Expression of VSV M protein was investigated at protein level. Cell cytotoxicity was measured using an MTT assay. The autophagy pathway was studied by Beclin-1 immunoassay. Data were statistically analyzed between different transfected groups.

RESULTS

It has been shown that the VSV M protein induced higher levels of Beclin-1 than the M51R mutant in the BT-20 cell line. Increased levels of Beclin-1 were also associated with VSV M cell-induced cytotoxicity.

CONCLUSION

It has been shown here that VSV wild type or mutant M proteins can cause autophagy-induced cell death by increasing Beclin-1 expression. This includes the possible role of VSV to be used as an oncolytic virus in breast cancer treatment. <br />.

Overexpression of Smac by an Armed Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Overcomes Tumor Resistance

Despite reports of successful clinical cases, many tumors appear to resist infection by oncolytic viruses (OVs). To circumvent this problem, an armed vesicular stomatitis virus was constructed by inserting a transgene to express Smac/DIABLO during virus infection (VSV-S). Endogenous Smac in HeLa cells was diminished during wtVSV infection, whereas the Smac level was enhanced during VSV-S infection. Apoptosis was readily induced by VSV-S, but not wtVSV, infection. More importantly, the tumor volume was reduced to a larger extent when xenografts of 4T1 cells in BALB/c mice and OV-resistant T-47D cells in nude mice were intratumorally injected with VSV-S. VSV-S represents a novel mechanism to overcome tumor resistance, resulting in more significant tumor regression due to enhanced apoptosis.

Recent advances in vesicular stomatitis virus-based oncolytic virotherapy: a 5-year update

Oncolytic virus (OV) therapy is an anti-cancer approach that uses viruses that preferentially infect, replicate in and kill cancer cells. Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV, a rhabdovirus) is an OV that is currently being tested in the USA in several phase I clinical trials against different malignancies. Several factors make VSV a promising OV: lack of pre-existing human immunity against VSV, a small and easy to manipulate genome, cytoplasmic replication without risk of host cell transformation, independence of cell cycle and rapid growth to high titres in a broad range of cell lines facilitating large-scale virus production. While significant advances have been made in VSV-based OV therapy, room for improvement remains. Here we review recent studies (published in the last 5 years) that address 'old' and 'new' challenges of VSV-based OV therapy. These studies focused on improving VSV safety, oncoselectivity and oncotoxicity; breaking resistance of some cancers to VSV; preventing premature clearance of VSV; and stimulating tumour-specific immunity. Many of these approaches were based on combining VSV with other therapeutics. This review also discusses another rhabdovirus closely related to VSV, Maraba virus, which is currently being tested in Canada in phase I/II clinical trials.

Autophagy Gene Activity May Act As a Key Factor for Sensitivity of Tumor Cells to Oncolytic Vesicular Stomatitis Virus

BACKGROUND

Beclin1 is an important, primary molecule for autophagy.

OBJECTIVES

It is suggested that the control of the autophagy path increases the sensitivity of tumor cells to VSV.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this study, the degree of Beclin1 gene expression in two cell lines, HeLa and A549, has been examined and the percentage of living cells subsequent infection with virus has been evaluated by MTT assay method.

RESULTS

The results showed that the degree of Beclin1 gene expression in HeLa cells in comparison with A549 cells has reduced, and the sensitivity of these cells to vesicular stomatits virus (VSV) oncolysis is more than A549.

CONCLUSIONS

It seems that by using some methods for reducing autophagy, it is possible to make tumor cells more sensitive to virotherapy and even other treatments.