Oncolytic adenoviruses (OAds) have shown great promise in cancer therapy, but their efficacy has been greatly limited by poor tumor selectivity and highly off-target liver sequestration. Herein, we generated a novel "stealth" and tumor-targeting OAd vector, M0-TMTP1, by inserting TMTP1 (NVVRQ), a tumor-homing peptide specifically targeting metastasis, into the hypervariable region 5 of hexon. M0-TMTP1 exhibits increased transduction of tumor cells in vitro. In vivo biodistribution of M0-TMTP1 in an intraperitoneal disseminated ovarian cancer model showed significantly reduced virus load in major organs but apparent aggregation in tumors. The tumor-to-liver ratio of M0-TMTP1 was nearly 5,000-fold higher than that of control adenovirus M0. Furthermore, we armed M0-TMTP1 with trunked BID, a mitochondrial apoptosis protein, to obtain M11. Combining M11 with cisplatin (DDP) could induce an intensive antitumor effect in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, this combination therapy showed higher biosafety. Taken together, our results suggest that M11 represents a tumor-targeting, efficacious, and relatively nontoxic virotherapeutic agent, and these findings might offer renewed hope for tumor management.
Keywords: TMTP1; liver tropism; oncolytic adenovirus; tumor targeting.