21.01.2021The Krauthammer group publishes their collaborative work on oncolytic virotherapy-mediated anti-tumor response

This work results from a collaboration between the Krauthammer lab and the research groups of Mitchell P. Levesque and Reinhard Dummer at the Dermatology Department, University Hospital Zurich and UZH.

Oncolytic virotherapy using Talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) is an established treatment in malignant melanoma. This study analysed the clinical, molecular, and immunological effects of T-VEC in longitudinal samples from 13 primary cutaneous B-cell lymphoma patients in a phase I clinical trial. Single-cell RNA sequencing has been applied to characterize the changes in the tumor cell population and the tumor microenvironment during therapy. T-VEC entry and replication was not restricted to the malignant B-cell population and elicited both a local and systemic immune response. The oncolytic virotherapy led to a rapid eradication of malignant cells, as well as an influx of natural killer cells, suggesting that T-VEC acts primarily via remodelling the tumor microenvironment, rather than through selective oncolysis.

See Ramelyte, Tastanova, Balázs et al., Cancer Cell.