Oncolytic virotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) is a promising novel therapeutic agent for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We report that VSV, after a single hepatic arterial infusion at the maximal tolerable dose (MTD), was capable of accessing multifocal lesions of HCC in the livers of rats, which resulted in tumor-selective viral replication, oncolysis, and prolonged survival of the treated animals. We constructed a novel recombinant VSV vector capable of inducing syncytia formation between tumor cells through membrane fusion at neutral pH, which led to enhanced viral transmission and oncolysis of…