Naturally oncolytic viruses.

ABSTRACT

Naturally oncolytic viruses are replication-competent viruses that have an innate ability to selectively infect and kill tumor cells. Despite being used in the original attempts to treat cancer with live viruses five decades ago, interest in naturally oncolytic viruses has lagged behind the support for engineered adenoviruses and herpesviruses as cancer therapeutics. Recently, however, there has been renewed interest in the high potency and selectivity of these naturally occurring agents. In this review, the mechanism of selectivity as well as the preclinical and clinical activity of naturally oncolytic viruses will be discussed.