Mechanistic insights into the oncolytic activity of vesicular stomatitis virus in cancer immunotherapy

Boris Simovic, Scott R Walsh, Yonghong Wan Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster Immunology Research Centre, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada Abstract: Immunotherapy and oncolytic virotherapy have both shown anticancer efficacy in the clinic as monotherapies but the greatest promise lies in therapies that combine these approaches. Vesicular stomatitis virus is a prominent oncolytic virus with several features that promise synergy between oncolytic virotherapy and immunotherapy. This review will address the cytotoxicity of vesicular stomatitis virus in transformed cells and what this means for antitumor immunity and the virus' immunogenicity, as well as how it facilitates the breaking of tolerance within the tumor, and finally, we will outline how these features can be incorporated into the rational design of new treatment strategies in combination with immunotherapy. Keywords: virotherapy, rhabdovirus, anti-tumor immunity, t cell, natural killer cell, therapeutic vaccin