Oncolytic viruses (OV) are engineered to infect, replicate in and kill cancer cells. Currently, the OV therapeutic approach is mainly restricted to neoplasia amenable to direct local administration of viral particles, while the possibility of a systemic delivery of cancer-tropic viruses would extend the OV application to the treatment of metastatic neoplasia. Herein, we applied in vivo/ex vivo imaging to demonstrate that cancer tropism is achieved when OV are encapsulated inside extracellular vesicles (EV) administered intravenously (i.v.), but not when injected intraperitoneally (i.p.). Moreover, we show that the therapeutic procedure adopted does not alter the immunomodulatory properties of the viruses.
Keywords: Oncolytic adenovirus; extracellular vesicles; immunocompetent mouse model; in vivo imaging; lung cancer.