Vaccine Strain of Measles Virus: A Tool for Cancer Therapy

Measles virus, the causative agent of measles, possesses a latently oncotropic character. This character enables the virus to infect, syntialize and lyse the cancer cells. The live attenuated strains, specially the Edmonston strain, recognize CD46 as their receptor. CD46 is overexpressed in adenocarcinoma cells. There is a basal level of expression of CD46 in all nucleated cells. The Edmonton vaccine strain has high affinity towards CD46 receptor but the wild stain has strong affinity towards CD150/ SLAM expressed on the lymphoid cells and epithelial nectin-4. This natural property of the live attenuated vaccine strains of Measles virus is exploited for oncolytic virotherapy. In recent years, virus-mediated oncolytic virotherapy has emerged as most reassuring therapy against carcinoma. Without causing any damage to the neighbouring tissues, the oncolytic Measles virus destroys the cancer cells through self-replication. Genetically modified viruses have been generated to broaden the field of oncolytic virotherapy. Previously non-engineered strains of MeV were used for conducting oncolytic virotherapyhighlighting the need for enhancing efficacy and safety. But with the emergence of reverse genetics system, the viral genome can be manipulated to develop genetically modified strains and this has brought an improvement in the therapeutic index. In this review we will discuss how the genetically engineered MeV strains are generated for oncolytic virotherapy as well as the possible outcomes of this modern therapeutic approach. We will also discuss about MeV mediated oncolytic immunotherapy in this review.