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Review
. 2024 Jun 28;12(7):721.
doi: 10.3390/vaccines12070721.

The Role of Natural Killer Cells in Oncolytic Virotherapy: Friends or Foes?

Michael L Franks  1   2 , Ju-Hyun An  1 , Jianmei W Leavenworth  1   3   4
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Natural Killer Cells in Oncolytic Virotherapy: Friends or Foes?

Michael L Franks et al. Vaccines (Basel). .

Abstract

Oncolytic virotherapy (OVT) has emerged as a promising cancer immunotherapy, and is capable of potentiating other immunotherapies due to its capacity to increase tumor immunogenicity and to boost host antitumor immunity. Natural killer (NK) cells are a critical cellular component for mediating the antitumor response, but hold a mixed reputation for their role in mediating the therapeutic efficacy of OVT. This review will discuss the pros and cons of how NK cells impact OVT, and how to harness this knowledge for the development of effective strategies that could modulate NK cells to improve OVT-based therapeutic outcomes.

Keywords: antitumor response; antiviral response; natural killer cells; oncolytic virotherapy; oncolytic virus.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Premature OV clearance dampens long-term therapeutic outcomes of OVT. (A) Antiviral response-mediated early OV clearance leads to poor tumor rejection and tumor recurrence. (B) Controlled antiviral response allows OV to spread within a tumor, resulting in improved therapeutic outcomes.
Figure 2
Figure 2
OVT promotes NK cell infiltration and tumor killing. (A) The immune-suppressive TME upregulates checkpoint receptors and ligands on NK and tumor cells, respectively, thereby inducing NK cell dysfunction and exhaustion. (B) OVT converts the immunologically “cold” TME to the “hot” condition, promoting NK cell infiltration and tumor lysis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Strategies for improving OVT therapeutic efficacy. Improved therapeutic outcomes for OVT can be achieved by facilitating OV spread and/or promoting tumor-killing capacity of NK cells in different ways.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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