Preclinical Testing of Virotherapeutics for Primary and Secondary Tumors of the Liver

Virotherapy offers a new treatment strategy using oncolytic viruses as self-replicating, tumor-specific agents, which destroy tumors during their natural lytic replication process. To study potential oncolytic viruses, cell culture experiments give basic information about the lytic potential of a virus, measured as cell lysis or decreased viability. For further analysis, animal models are usually employed. As these in vivo experiments are often performed in immunocompromised animals, results have to be interpreted with caution. Therefore, to obtain deeper information of the oncolytic action of specific viruses in a patient’s individual context we established a test platform based on human primary tissue slices. In this three-dimensional model, we observed a preferential tumor infection and the penetration of oncolytic measles vaccine virus into deeper cell layers of tumor tissues, which is an essential feature of an effective oncolytic virus.