Deletion of Apoptosis Inhibitor F1L in Vaccinia Virus Increases Safety and Oncolysis for Cancer Therapy.

Vaccinia virus (VACV) possesses a great safety record as a smallpox vaccine and has been intensively used as an oncolytic virus against various types of cancer over the past decade. Different strategies were developed to make VACV safe and selective to cancer cells. Leading clinical candidates, such as Pexa-Vec, are attenuated through deletion of the viral thymidine kinase (TK) gene, which limits virus growth to replicate in cancer tissue. However, tumors are not the only tissues whose metabolic activity can overcome the lack of viral TK. In this study, we sought to further increase the tumor-specific replication and oncolytic potential of Copenhagen strain VACV ΔTK. We show that deletion of the anti-apoptosis viral gene F1L not only increases the safety of the Copenhagen ΔTK virus but also improves its oncolytic activity in an aggressive glioblastoma model. The additional loss of F1L does not affect VACV replication capacity, yet its ability to induce cancer cell death is significantly increased. Our results also indicate that cell death induced by the Copenhagen ΔTK/F1L mutant releases more immunogenic signals, as indicated by increased levels of IL-1ß production. A cytotoxicity screen in an NCI-60 panel shows that the ΔTK/F1L virus induces faster tumor cell death in different cancer types. Most importantly, we show that, compared to the TK-deleted virus, the ΔTK/F1L virus is attenuated in human normal cells and causes fewer pox lesions in murine models. Collectively, our findings describe a new oncolytic vaccinia deletion strain that improves safety and increases tumor cell killing.

Complement inhibition enables tumor delivery of LCMV glycoprotein pseudotyped viruses in the presence of antiviral antibodies.

The systemic delivery of therapeutic viruses, such as oncolytic viruses or vaccines, is limited by the generation of neutralizing antibodies. While pseudotyping of rhabdoviruses with the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus glycoprotein has previously allowed for multiple rounds of delivery in mice, this strategy has not translated to other animal models. For the first time, we provide experimental evidence that antibodies generated against the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus glycoprotein mediate robust complement-dependent viral neutralization via activation of the classical pathway. We show that this phenotype can be capitalized upon to deliver maraba virus pseudotyped with the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus glycoprotein in a Fischer rat model in the face of neutralizing antibody through the use of complement modulators. This finding changes the understanding of the humoral immune response to arenaviruses, and also describes methodology to deliver viral vectors to their therapeutic sites of action without the interference of neutralizing antibody.

Reciprocal cellular cross-talk within the tumor microenvironment promotes oncolytic virus activity.

Tumors are complex ecosystems composed of networks of interacting 'normal' and malignant cells. It is well recognized that cytokine-mediated cross-talk between normal stromal cells, including cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), vascular endothelial cells, immune cells, and cancer cells, influences all aspects of tumor biology. Here we demonstrate that the cross-talk between CAFs and cancer cells leads to enhanced growth of oncolytic virus (OV)-based therapeutics. Transforming growth factor-ß (TGF-ß) produced by tumor cells reprogrammed CAFs, dampened their steady-state level of antiviral transcripts and rendered them sensitive to virus infection. In turn, CAFs produced high levels of fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), initiating a signaling cascade in cancer cells that reduced retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) expression and impeded the ability of malignant cells to detect and respond to virus. In xenografts derived from individuals with pancreatic cancer, the expression of FGF2 correlated with the susceptibility of the cancer cells to OV infection, and local application of FGF2 to resistant tumor samples sensitized them to virotherapy both in vitro and in vivo. An OV engineered to express FGF2 was safe in tumor-bearing mice, showed improved therapeutic efficacy compared to parental virus and merits consideration for clinical testing.

Re-engineering vesicular stomatitis virus to abrogate neurotoxicity, circumvent humoral immunity, and enhance oncolytic potency.

As cancer treatment tools, oncolytic viruses (OV) have yet to realize what some see as their ultimate clinical potential. In this study, we have engineered a chimeric vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) that is devoid of its natural neurotoxicity while retaining potent oncolytic activity. The envelope glycoprotein (G) of VSV was replaced with a variant glycoprotein of the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV-GP), creating a replicating therapeutic, rVSV(GP), that is benign in normal brain but can effectively eliminate brain cancer in multiple preclinical tumor models in vivo. Furthermore, it can be safely administered systemically to mice and displays greater potency against a spectrum of human cancer cell lines than current OV candidates. Remarkably, rVSV(GP) escapes humoral immunity, thus, for the first time, allowing repeated systemic OV application without loss of therapeutic efficacy. Taken together, rVSV(GP) offers a considerably improved OV platform that lacks several of the major drawbacks that have limited the clinical potential of this technology to date.

RNA interference against transcription elongation factor SII does not support its role in transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair.

RNA polymerase II is unable to bypass bulky DNA lesions induced by agents like ultraviolet light (UV light) and cisplatin that are located in the template strand of active genes. Arrested polymerases form a stable ternary complex at the site of DNA damage that is thought to pose an impediment to the repair of these lesions. Transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair (TC-NER) preferentially repairs these DNA lesions through an incompletely defined mechanism. Based on elegant in vitro experiments, it was hypothesized that the transcription elongation factor IIS (TFIIS) may be required to couple transcription to repair by catalyzing the reverse translocation of the arrested polymerase, allowing access of repair proteins to the site of DNA damage. However the role of TFIIS in this repair process has not been tested in vivo. Here, silencing TFIIS using an RNA interference strategy did not affect the ability of cells to recover nascent RNA synthesis following UV exposure or the ability of cells to repair a UV-damaged reporter gene while a similar strategy to decrease the expression Cockayne syndrome group B protein (CSB) resulted in the expected repair defect. Furthermore, RNA interference against TFIIS did not increase the sensitivity of cells to UV light or cisplatin while decreased expression of CSB did. Taken together, these results indicate that TFIIS is not limiting for the repair of transcription-blocking DNA lesions and thus the present work does not support a role for TFIIS in TC-NER.

Decreased transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair capacity is associated with increased p53- and MLH1-independent apoptosis in response to cisplatin.

BACKGROUND: One of the most commonly used classes of anti-cancer drugs presently in clinical practice is the platinum-based drugs, including cisplatin. The efficacy of cisplatin therapy is often limited by the emergence of resistant tumours following treatment. Cisplatin resistance is multi-factorial but can be associated with increased DNA repair capacity, mutations in p53 or loss of DNA mismatch repair capacity. METHODS: RNA interference (RNAi) was used to reduce the transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair (TC-NER) capacity of several prostate and colorectal carcinoma cell lines with specific defects in p53 and/or DNA mismatch repair. The effect of small inhibitory RNAs designed to target the CSB (Cockayne syndrome group B) transcript on TC-NER and the sensitivity of cells to cisplatin-induced apoptosis was determined. RESULTS: These prostate and colon cancer cell lines were initially TC-NER proficient and RNAi against CSB significantly reduced their DNA repair capacity. Decreased TC-NER capacity was associated with an increase in the sensitivity of tumour cells to cisplatin-induced apoptosis, even in p53 null and DNA mismatch repair-deficient cell lines. CONCLUSION: The present work indicates that CSB and TC-NER play a prominent role in determining the sensitivity of tumour cells to cisplatin even in the absence of p53 and DNA mismatch repair. These results further suggest that CSB represents a potential target for cancer therapy that may be important to overcome resistance to cisplatin in the clinic.

Ultraviolet light induces the sustained unscheduled expression of cyclin E in the absence of functional p53.

Cell cycle progression is regulated through changes in the activity of cyclin-dependent kinases that are, in turn, regulated by the expression of their respective cyclin partners. In primary cells, cyclin E expression increases through the G(1) phase of the cell cycle and peaks near the G(1)/S boundary. The unscheduled expression of cyclin E in primary human fibroblasts leads to chromosomal instability that is greatly increased by loss of the p53 tumour suppressor. Intriguingly, ultraviolet light (UV), the most prevalent environmental carcinogen, is similarly known to induce chromosomal instability more dramatically in the absence of p53. Here we report that UV light transiently increased the expression of cyclin E in normal human fibroblasts. Strikingly, cyclin E levels remained elevated for an extended period of time in the absence of functional p53. UV-induced cyclin E expression was not restricted to the G(1)/S boundary but remained elevated throughout S phase and this correlated with a massive accumulation of p53-deficient fibroblasts in this phase of the cell cycle. Forced expression of cyclin E alone was insufficient to cause a similar S phase arrest but forced expression of cyclin E led to an increase in the proportion of UV-irradiated cells in S phase. The present work suggests that p53 affects S phase progression following UV exposure by preventing the sustained unscheduled expression of cyclin E and that this may limit the clastogenic and carcinogenic effects of UV light.

The contribution of transactivation subdomains 1 and 2 to p53-induced gene expression is heterogeneous but not subdomain-specific.

Two adjacent regions within the transactivation domain of p53 are sufficient to support sequence-specific transactivation when fused to a heterologous DNA binding domain. It has been hypothesized that these two subdomains of p53 may contribute to the expression of distinct p53-responsive genes. Here we have used oligonucleotide microarrays to identify transcripts induced by variants of p53 with point mutations within subdomains 1, 2, or 1 and 2 (QS1, QS2, and QS1/QS2, respectively). The expression of 254 transcripts was increased in response to wild-type p53 expression but most of these transcripts were poorly induced by these variants of p53. Strikingly, a number of known p53-regulated transcripts including TNFRSF10B, BAX, BTG2, and POLH were increased to wild-type levels by p53(QS1) and p53(QS2) but not p53(QS1/QS2), indicating that either subdomain 1 or 2 is sufficient for p53-dependent expression of a small subset of p53-responsive genes. Unexpectedly, there was no evidence for p53(QS1)- or p53(QS2)-specific gene expression. Taken together, we found heterogeneity in the requirement for transactivation subdomains 1 and 2 of p53 without any subdomain-specific contribution to p53-induced gene expression.

DDB2-independent role for p53 in the recovery from ultraviolet light-induced replication arrest.

Ultraviolet light (UV light) induces helix distorting DNA lesions that pose a block to replicative DNA polymerases. Recovery from this replication arrest is reportedly impaired in nucleotide excision repair (NER)-deficient xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) fibroblasts and primary fibroblasts lacking functional p53. These independent observations suggested that the involvement of p53 in the recovery from UV-induced replication arrest was related to its role in regulating the global genomic subpathway of NER (GG-NER). Using primary human fibroblasts, we confirm that the recovery from UV-induced replication arrest is impaired in cells lacking functional p53 and in primary XP fibroblasts derived from complementation groups A or C (XP-A and XP-C) that are defective in GG-NER. Surprisingly, DNA synthesis recovered normally in GG-NER-deficient XP complementation group E (XP-E) cells that carry mutations in the p53 regulated DNA repair gene DDB2 and are specifically defective in the repair of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD) but not pyrimidine (6-4) pyrimidone photoproducts. Disruption of p53 in these XP-E fibroblasts prevented the recovery from UV-induced replication arrest. Therefore, the roles of p53 and GG-NER in the recovery from UV-induced replication are separable and DDB2-independent. These results further indicate that primary human fibroblasts expressing functional p53 efficiently replicate DNA containing CPD whereas p53-deficient cells do not, consistent with a role for p53 in permitting translesion synthesis of these DNA lesions.

Regulation of ultraviolet light-induced gene expression by gene size.

UV light induces the expression of a wide variety of genes. At present, it is unclear how cells sense the extent of DNA damage and alter the expression of UV-induced genes appropriately. UV light induces DNA damage that blocks transcription, and the probability that a gene sustains transcription-blocking DNA damage is proportional to locus size and dose of UV light. Using colon carcinoma cells that express a temperature-sensitive variant of p53 and undergo p53-dependent apoptosis after UV irradiation, we found that the number of p53-induced genes identified by oligonucleotide microarray analysis decreased in a UV dose-dependent manner. This was associated with a statistically significant shift in the spectrum of p53-induced genes toward compact genes with fewer and smaller introns. Genes encoding proapoptotic proteins involved in the initiation of the mitochondrial apoptotic cascade were prominent among the compact p53 target genes, whereas genes encoding negative regulators of p53 and the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway were significantly larger. We propose that the shift in spectrum of UV-responsive gene expression caused by passive effects of UV lesions on transcription acts as a molecular dosimeter, ensuring the elimination of cells sustaining irreparable transcription-blocking DNA damage.