Immunobiology of Anticancer Virotherapy With Newcastle Disease Virus in Cancer Patients

Abstract

Virotherapy with oncolytic viruses that preferentially infect and kill cancer cells is a novel and promising strategy for cancer treatment. Newcastle disease virus (NDV), which is pathogenic in birds, has beneficial clinical effects in cancer patients. NDV virotherapy is safe and elicits an antitumor response in patients affected by different types of cancers. The selective replication of NDV in tumor cells, the lack of genetic recombination, the lack of interaction with host cell DNA, and safety of NDV vaccination in cancer patients has resulted in NDV virotherapy to be accepted as a potentially attractive anticancer modality. However, more knowledge is needed to support the development of optimal NDV-based treatment modality for cancer. In this paper, the biological characteristics of NDV, the clinical effectiveness of NDV-based anticancer vaccination, immunobiology of NDV virotherapy in cancer patients, immune responses to NDV vaccines, and NDV-induced immunogenic cell death and apoptosis of cancer cells have been discussed in detail.