Testing the therapeutic efficacy of vesicular stomatitis virus as a single agent or in combination with the histone deacetylase inhibitor, MS-275, in a mouse model of ovarian cancer

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death in Canadian women. Current treatments lack long-teen therapeutic benefit, indicating a need for novel approaches. An interesting novel cancer therapeutic is the oncolytic virus, vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), which has yielded promising results in both in vitro and in vivo studies. We performed the first tests of VSV in a transgenic mouse model of cancer. Efficacy testing was completed in vitro and in vivo using cell survival assays and survival studies. Despite promising results in vitro, there was a lack of therapeutic benefit in vivo of the single agent treatment. To attempt to increase the therapeutic efficacy, we combined VSV with a histone deacetylase inhibitor. In vitro combination treatments were effective; however survival was not improved. These results indicate a lack of therapeutic benefit with VSV treatment in this transgenic model of cancer, but optimization of the treatment regimen still needs to be explored.