H-1 Parvovirus as a Cancer-Killing Agent: Past, Present, and Future

• Published in: Viruses Vol. 11; no. 6; p. 562
• Main Authors: Bretscher, Clemens, Marchini, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 18.06.2019; MDPI
• Subjects: Amino acids; Apoptosis; Brain tumors; Cancer therapies; Cell cycle; Cell death; combination therapies; Cytotoxicity; Genomes; Glioma; H-1PV; Immune response; Immune system; Immunogenicity; Immunotherapy; Infections; Oncolysis; oncolytic virus immune therapy; Pancreatic carcinoma; Parvoviruses; Patients; Proteins; Review; rodent protoparvoviruses; second generation parvovirus treatments; Tumor microenvironment; Tumors; Viruses; H-1PV; rodent protoparvoviruses; oncolytic virus immune therapy; second generation parvovirus treatments; combination therapies
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v11060562

The rat protoparvovirus H-1PV is nonpathogenic in humans, replicates preferentially in cancer cells, and has natural oncolytic and oncosuppressive activities. The virus is able to kill cancer cells by activating several cell death pathways. H-1PV-mediated cancer cell death is often immunogenic and triggers anticancer immune responses. The safety and tolerability of H-1PV treatment has been demonstrated in early clinical studies in glioma and pancreatic carcinoma patients. Virus treatment was associated with surrogate signs of efficacy including immune conversion of tumor microenvironment, effective virus distribution into the tumor bed even after systemic administration, and improved patient overall survival compared with historical control. However, monotherapeutic use of the virus was unable to eradicate tumors. Thus, further studies are needed to improve H-1PV's anticancer profile. In this review, we describe H-1PV's anticancer properties and discuss recent efforts to improve the efficacy of H-1PV and, thereby, the clinical outcome of H-1PV-based therapies.