2024-03-27 13:44:58
Scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore are developing a new cancer treatment that uses the Zika virus to specifically kill brain cancer cells, offering a promising option for treating malignant brain tumors. . This approach, which utilizes a Zika virus vaccine strain that effectively targets rapidly proliferating tumor cells while sparing healthy cells, may open new avenues for treating aggressive brain tumors that currently have limited treatment options.
The team found that the vaccine strain of Zika virus was able to eradicate brain tumor cells while protecting healthy cells. Scientists have developed a new way to use the Zika virus to destroy brain cancer cells and inhibit tumor growth, while sparing healthy cells. They made this discovery with Zika virus vaccine candidate strains developed at Duke-NUS that target rapidly proliferating cells rather than mature cells, making them ideal for targeting rapidly growing cancer cells in the adult brain. options.
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Their study, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, provides a new treatment alternative for brain cancer patients who currently have a poor prognosis.
“Glioblastoma multiforme” is the most common malignant brain cancer, with more than 300,000 patients diagnosed with this disease worldwide every year. Due to high tumor recurrence rates and limited current treatment options, survival rates for these patients are poor (approximately 15 months). For these patients, tumor lytic virotherapy—the use of engineered viruses to infect and kill cancer cells—may solve current treatment challenges.
The Prospects of Zika Virus in Oncolytic Virotherapy Zika virus is an option in early stages of development. The Duke-NUS team used strains of Zika virus activity-attenuated vaccine (ZIKV-LAV). These “weakened” viruses have limited ability to infect healthy cells but can still grow and spread rapidly within tumor tissue.
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Weakened Zika virus only kills cancer cells
Cultured human neurons infected with ZIKV-LAV. The infected parts are pink and the nuclei are blue. (Image credit: Duke-NUS Medical School)
Lead researcher Dr. Carla Bianca Luena Victorio said: “We chose Zika virus because it is naturally capable of infecting rapidly proliferating cells in the brain, allowing us to reach cancer cells that are traditionally difficult to target. Our ZIKV-LAV strain can also Replicates itself within brain cancer cells, making it a living treatment capable of spreading and attacking adjacent diseased cells. Experiments have shown that these strains cause the death of 65% to 90% of glioblastoma multiforme tumor cells, It also infected 9 to 20 percent of brain blood vessel cells without causing the death of these healthy cells. By comparison, the original Zika strain killed up to 50 percent of healthy brain cells.”
The scientists also found that the ZIKV-LAV strain was not very capable of reproducing, even when infecting healthy cells. The amount of Zika virus in healthy brain cells was only 0.36 to 9 times higher than before infection, while the amount of virus in brain cancer cells was 100 to 1 billion times higher than before infection. This further suggests that conditions in cancer cells are more favorable for viral reproduction.
The research holds the promise of using the Zika virus as a new way to treat cancer, particularly in patients with brain cancer. This study demonstrates the collaboration between different research fields, combining medical knowledge and improving the quality of patients’ lives, which may provide new control methods for cancer treatment in the future, and even provide the possibility of curing cancer.
The research appears in the latest issue of the journal Translational Medicine.
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Source of the first picture: scitechdaily.com cc By4.0
Image source: Duke-NUS Medical School cc By4.0
Reference papers:
1.Repurposing of Zika virus live-attenuated vaccine (ZIKV-LAV) strains as oncolytic viruses targeting human glioblastoma multiforme cellsJournal of Translational Medicine
Further reading:
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