Journal of Biological Research (Jan 2011)

A murine model for virotherapy of malignant brain tumors

  • E. Gambini,
  • E. Reisoli,
  • I. Appolloni,
  • L. Menotti,
  • Paolo Malatesta

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4081/jbr.2011.4500
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 84, no. 1

Abstract

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Glioblastomas (GBMs) are very aggressive and almost incurable brain tumors. The development of new therapeutical approaches capable of selectively killing cancer cells could represent a step forward to fight cancer. With this aim we tested the efficacy of a novel oncolytic therapy based on recombinant herpes simplex viruses (HSVs) infecting exclusively cells expressing the human receptor HER-2 [1, 2], overexpressed in about 15% of GBM model based on PDGF-B embryonic transduction [4, 5]. We engineered cell cultures derived from this model to express HER-2 and we injected intracranically such cultures in NOD/SCID mice. We evaluated the efficacy of R-LM113, a recombinant HSV directed to HER-2, in this glioma model expressing HER-2. We demostrated that mice injected with engineered glioma cells infected with R-LM113 developed glioma with a statistically significant delay compared to mice injected with non-infected engineered glioma cells.

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