Zika UTMB vaccine is promising against aggressive brain cancer

Zika virus is promising in the fight against the deadliest kind of brain cancer, according to research conducted by Galveston on mice that are trying to exploit the therapeutic benefits of what has been called "HIV infection." 'hell".

A medical team at the University of Texas Galveston-led team reported this week that they have successfully used a harmless version of Zika to target and kill glioblastoma, the common and aggressive cancer that killed last month John McCain. The version is a Zika vaccine developed at the UTMB.

"There is still work to be done, but these discoveries represent major breakthroughs in the development of the Zika vaccine as a safe and effective treatment for human glioblastoma," said Pei-Yong Shi, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. ; UTMB. "This could be a great example of the ability of science to turn something bad into something useful."

The results of the mouse study conducted by Shi and his colleagues in Beijing were published Tuesday in the mBIO journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Experts point out that the therapeutic benefits in mice are considered far removed from human treatment. Research that is very promising in the laboratory fails more often than it does in people.

The research combines two formidable diseases: glioblastoma, which kills more than 15,000 Americans each year and is considered incurable because it breeds after standard treatment for surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy; and mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has become a major threat to public health in recent years, after it has been shown to cause serious birth defects. Babies born to women infected during pregnancy often suffer from a condition called microcephaly characterized by an abnormally small head and an underdeveloped brain.

Shi's team exploited Zika's ability to infect developing brain cells to attack glioblastoma stem cells as a likely source of cancer recurrence. Like fetal cells, glial stem cells automatically renew and multiply rapidly, properties that Zika targets.

UTMB researchers have developed the Zika vaccine in 2017 to prevent the disease, which still poses a major threat in much of Latin America. The team is negotiating with the Brazilian government to conduct vaccine trials with people at high risk of contracting the Zika virus. The vaccine has already been shown to be effective in animal research.

Shi's team discovered that the vaccine, which is a weakened version of the virus, also works well against mice designed to have a human version of glioblastoma. The study found that glioblastomas developed much more slowly in mice whose brain had received an injection of glioblastoma and Zika stem cells than those who had just received stem cells. He also discovered that the virus was mainly spared by healthy brain neurons.

Martyn Sharpe, head of research at the Houston Methodist Pituitary Tumor and Brain Treatment Center, said Zika had a lot of potential as she targeted stem cells, but added that the key issue would be complications.

"The success of this research will depend on the quality of the vaccine in humans to target stem cells relative to healthy tissue," Sharpe said. "Research often works beautifully in animals, but fails in humans. You do not know how the drug will interact with human tissue. "

Although the study showed that the destruction of Zika's glioblastoma stem cells was only beneficial, the team of scientists hopes that it will allow the immune system to attack brain cancer. The idea, a new frontier of cancer treatment, is that Zika's lethal action will release tumor proteins that trigger an immune response, a strategy that doctors at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston Methodist Hospital. and other institutions across the country use against other viruses. brain cancer.

Shi said that much work needs to be done to make Zika a safer and more powerful weapon against glioblastoma. But he added that he was hoping soon to work with UTMB clinicians to set up a clinical trial testing the vaccine in human patients.