Designing and building oncolytic viruses

Maroun, Justin; Muñoz-Alía, Miguel; Ammayappan, Arun; Schulze, Autumn; Peng, Kah-Whye; Russell, Stephen

Certain viruses with segmented genomes, most notably the orthomyxoviruses (e.g., influenza), are capable of rapid evolution by genome fragment reassortment in multiple infected cells. Reassortment of genome fragments in virus-infected birds and pigs is considered to be a key driver of the antigenic shifts that occur during evolution of new pathogenic influenza virus strains [180] . This important safety concern may explain why oncolytic influenza viruses have not yet been advanced to human clinical trials [181] . Because of the toxicity risks associated with the proliferative and evolutionary capacity of OVs, there is considerable interest in contingency plans to terminate the spread and/or transmission of an OV infection. Reliable antiviral medications are available for TK-expressing herpes viruses, but this is not the case for the majority of viruses being developed as OV platforms [182, 183] . Attention has therefore been directed to the development of safety switches that can be engineered into the OV genome and triggered on demand to terminate in vivo replication.