Trojan horse viruses infiltrate the murder viruses into the tumors

The new platform combines bacteria to find tumors and attack them with the natural preference of the virus to infect and kill cancer cells. Tal Danino, associate professor of biomedical engineering in Colombia, has led the team’s efforts to create the system, which is called Cappsid (short for activity coordinated in primitive cores and the Picorenephs virus for safe delivery within cells). Charles M. Rice, an expert in virus at the University of Rockefeller, with the Colombia team.

“We were aimed at enhancing the treatment of bacteria by enabling bacteria to connect and activate a therapeutic virus directly inside the tumor cells, while engineering guarantees to reduce viral spread outside the tumor,” says co -author Jonathan Babon, MD/PHD candidate in Colombia.

The researchers believe that this technology-which has been validated in mice-represents the first example of the engineer’s cooperation directly between bacteria and cancer targeting viruses.

This approach combines the bacteria instinct to reach tumors with a virus talent to infect and kill cancer cells. “By blocking bacterial engineering with synthetic viruses, our goal is to open a road towards multi -living treatments that can achieve much more than any one microbe can achieve alone,” says Zakary S. Singer, a post -PhD author at the Tal Danino Lab.

“This is likely to be the most advanced platform technically and the novel so far,” says Danino, who also belongs to the comprehensive Herbert Erfing Cancer Center at the Irving Medical Center at Columbia University and the Institute of Data Science in Colombia.

Cross after the immune system

One of the biggest obstacles in the treatment of viruses is the oncology of the body’s defense system. If the patient has antibodies against the virus – from previous infection or vaccination – these antibodies can be neutralized before they reach a tumor. The Colombia team avoided this problem by blocking the virus inside the bacteria to search for the tumor.

“Bacteria act as an invisible mantle,” Singer says.

Babon says this strategy is especially important to the viruses that people are already exposed to in daily life.

“Our system shows that bacteria can be used to launch the ONCOLYTIC virus to treat solid tumors in patients who have developed immunity to these viruses,” he says.

Targeting

The bacterial half of the system Salmonella TifimoriumIt is the species that naturally migrate to the low environment rich in nutrients inside the tumors. Once you get there, bacteria invade cancer cells and released the virus directly into the inner part of the tumor.

“We have programmed bacteria to serve as a Trojan horse by transporting the viral RNA in the tumors and then ranging themselves directly inside the cancer cells to release the viral genome, which can then spread between the cancer cells,” says Singer.

By exploiting the instincts of bacteria that wear the tumor and the ability of the virus to repeat within the cancer cells, the researchers created a connection system that can penetrate the tumor and spread throughout its parts-a challenge that limited all bacteria and virus approaches only.

Protection from fleeing infections

There is a major concern with any virus treatment that controls its spread beyond the tumor. The team system solved this problem with a molecular trick: Ensure that the virus cannot spread without a molecule that can only be obtained from bacteria. Since the bacteria remain in the tumor, this vital component (called the protein enzyme) is not available anywhere in the body.

“The viral molecules can only be formed in the vicinity of bacteria, which are necessary to provide special machines necessary for viral maturity in the engineering virus, providing artificial dependence among microbes,” says Singer. This protection adds a second layer of control: even if the virus escapes from the tumor, it will not spread in healthy tissues.

“These are systems like these – especially towards enhancing the integrity of these live treatments – which will be necessary to translate these developments into the clinic,” says Singer.

More research and clinical applications

This post represents an important step towards making this type of bacterial virus system available for future clinical applications.

“As a medical doctor, my goal is to bring live medications to the clinic,” Babon says. “The efforts towards clinical translation are currently underway to translate our technology outside the laboratory.”

Danino, Rice, the singer, and Pabun submitted patent request (Wo2024254419a2) with the US Patent and brands office related to this work.

Looking forward, the team tests the approach in a wide range of cancer, using different types of tumor, mouse models, viruses, and load, while considering the development of a “set of tools” of viral treatments that can respond to specific conditions within the cell. They also evaluate how this system is combined with bacteria strains that have already shown safety in clinical trials.