Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jan;18(2):245-259.
doi: 10.2217/fon-2021-0802. Epub 2021 Nov 25.

Oncolytic virotherapy as promising immunotherapy against cancer: mechanisms of resistance to oncolytic viruses

Nasser Hashemi Goradel  1 , Arezoo Alizadeh  2 , Shahnaz Hosseinzadeh  3 , Mitra Taghipour  4 , Zeinab Ghesmati  5 , Arash Arashkia  6 , Babak Negahdari  1
Affiliations
Review

Oncolytic virotherapy as promising immunotherapy against cancer: mechanisms of resistance to oncolytic viruses

Nasser Hashemi Goradel et al. Future Oncol. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

Oncolytic virotherapy has currently emerged as a powerful therapeutic approach in cancer treatment. Although the history of using viruses goes back to the early 20th century, the approval of talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) in 2015 increased interest in oncolytic viruses (OVs). OVs are multifaceted biotherapeutic agents because they replicate in and kill tumor cells and augment immune responses by releasing immunostimulatory molecules from lysed cells. Despite promising results, some limitations hinder the efficacy of oncolytic virotherapy. The delivery challenges and the upregulation of checkpoints following oncolytic virotherapy also mediate resistance to OVs by diminishing immune responses. Furthermore, the localization of receptors of viruses in the tight junctions, interferon responses, and the aberrant expression of genes involved in the cell cycle of the virus, including their infection and replication, reduce the efficacy of OVs. In this review, we present different mechanisms of resistance to OVs and strategies to overcome them.

Keywords: checkpoint inhibitors; immune responses; interferon responses; oncolytic virotherapy; tight junctions.

Plain language summary

Lay abstract Using viruses in the treatment of cancer goes back to the early 20th century. One of the promising fields in cancer virotherapy is viruses’ ability to preferentially lysis tumor cells, either naturally or genetically engineered cells; these viruses are termed ‘oncolytic viruses.’ As with other therapeutic strategies, resistance to the oncolytic viruses is the main challenge in their application in clinical trials. This review summarizes the mechanisms of resistance to oncolytic viruses and the strategies that have been used to overcome these challenges.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Substances

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
chat 2
INTERN 2
twitter 2