Identification of vesicular stomatitis virus as a leukemolytic agent

In the course of tumourigenesis the interferon-response pathway is frequently disrupted. We have demonstrated that this common deficiency makes malignant cells highly susceptible to infection and killing by vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). VSV is a an enveloped, negativestranded RNA virus which is known to be exquisitively sensitive to interferon. While VSV replication is blocked in normal cells by interferon the virus grows rapidly in tumour …