61. Prevention of Liver Cirrhosis Development in Rats with Recombinant SV40 Vectors Expressing IGF-I

Oncolytic virus therapy is a novel and expanding approach for treatment of cancer. However, its success is dependent on clarification of signaling mechanisms involved in determination of cell permissiveness to such viral agents. Such data can lead to the development of strategies for increasing efficiency and specificity of oncolytic viruses. We have shown that transformation with oncogenes in Ras signaling pathway plays an essential role in the determination of cell permissiveness to herpes virus and some of its oncolytic mutants. In this study we provide evidence that transcription factors down-stream of Ras can be used as a marker to predict permissiveness of human lymphoma cell lines to R3616, an oncolytic version of herpes simplex virus-1 with deletions in both copies of the viral g134.5 gene. Different lymphoma cell lines including Radji, Daudi. Jurkat, CA46, ST486, NC37, U937, Ramas and Molt4 were infected with R3616 at MOI~0.5 and their permissiveness to this virus was evaluated by different methods such as western blotting for viral proteins and plaque titration for progeny virus.