Seyedeh Nasim Mirbahari, Sina Salari, Shabnam Shahrokh, Mohammadreza Zali, Mehdi Totonchi,
Volume 18, Issue 1 (3-2024)
Background and Aim: Oncolytic viruses, as novel and advanced tools in the field of treating various types of cancer, have played a very important role in medical developments. The term “oncolytic” refers to the ability of these viruses to destroy and damage cancer cells while preserving the surrounding healthy cells.
Materials and Methods: To conduct this study, a total of 270 initial results were collected through searching in the PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases from 2012 to 2024. The primary researcher reviewed 68 relevant articles, extracted and summarized the contents, and finally compiled the findings.
Results: The findings from this review study demonstrate that cancer cells possess distinct characteristics that differentiate them from normal cells, including continuous growth signaling, resistance to anti-growth signaling, evasion of apoptosis, increased angiogenesis, and invasion into other body parts. Oncolytic viruses utilize these distinctive features to selectively target and infect cancer cells. Most oncolytic viruses directly eliminate host tumor cells, resulting in viral replication and induction of host antiviral responses. Moreover, these viruses can destroy cancer cells through the production of specific proteins. The cytotoxic potential of oncolytic viruses depends on viral type, genetic manipulation, optimal virus dosage for injection, natural and induced viral tropism, and cancer cell sensitivity to various forms of cell death. The mechanism driving the selective replication of oncolytic viruses in cancer cells likely relates to defects in signaling pathways specific to tumor cells. Phase III clinical trials have demonstrated significant improvements in the treatment outcomes of various cancers, including head and neck cancer, melanoma, glioblastoma, and bladder cancer, through the use of H101 (Oncorine), T-Vec, ECHO-7, and Teserpaturev (Delytact) viruses.
Conclusion: Oncolytic viruses are constructed from various types of viruses and are currently being evaluated in laboratory, preclinical, and clinical stages. The use of these viruses for the treatment of cancer as a new and targeted approach has been proposed, which requires further investigation and achievement of more precise mechanisms for their better performance.
