Therapy of a murine model of pediatric brain tumors using a herpes simplex virus type-1 ICP34.5 mutant and demonstration of viral replication within the CNS

Abstract

To develop improved therapies for medulloblastoma, we studied the ability of a neuroattenuated HSV-1 ICP34.5 mutant (variant-1716) to replicate within and destroy an authentic medulloblastoma cell line known as Med 283 (D283) using immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, and vital titrations. In vitro studies showed that variant-1716 replicates in and destroys monolayers of D283 cells with kinetics similar to wild-type strain 17+. When D283 tumor-bearing animals were treated with variant-1716 injected directly into the tumor, there was a statistically significant increase in survival (p