Bioengineered viral vectors for targeting and killing prostate cancer cells

Abstract

Enabling the transduction of therapeutic gene expression exclusively in diseased sites is the key to developing more effective treatments for advanced prostate cancer using viral-based therapy. While prostate cancers that express high levels of HER 2 are resistant to the killing effects of trastuzumab, they can be targeted for selective gene expression and destruction by lentiviruses with envelope proteins engineered to bind to this therapeutic antibody. More importantly, after intravenous injection, this trastuzumab-bound lentivirus is able to target castration-resistant prostate tumour xenografts, albeit with low efficiency. This proof of principle opens up multiple possibilities for the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer using a viral-based therapy. However, to be safe and more effective, the viral vectors must target prostate cancer cells more selectively and efficiently. A higher degree of specificity and efficiency of cancer cell targeting can be achieved by engineering viral vectors to bind to a specific cell surface marker and by controlling the expression of the therapeutic payload at transcriptional level, with a tissue-specific promoter, and at the translational level, with a regulatory sequences inserted into either the 5’UTR or 3’UTR regions of the therapeutic gene(s). The latter would be designed to ensure that translation of this mRNA occurs exclusively in malignant cells. Furthermore, in order to obtain a potent anti-tumour effect, viral vectors would be engineered to express pro-apoptotic genes, intra-cellar antibodies/ nucleotide aptamers to block critical proteins, or siRNAs to knockdown essential cellular mRNAs. Alternatively, controlled expression of an essential viral gene would restore replication competence to the virus and enable selective oncolysis of tumour cells. Successful delivery of such bioengineered viruses may provide a more effective way to treat advanced prostate cancer.