Assessment of replication of bovine herpesvirus type 4 in human glioblastoma and breast cancer cells as a potential oncolytic virus.

Oncolytic viruses have been extensively used in cancer treatment due to their tropism, selective replication only in tumor cells, and possible synergic interaction with other therapeutics. Different researchers have demonstrated that bovine herpesvirus 4 (BoHV-4), a member of the gammaherpesviridae family, has oncolytic potential in some human-origin cancer cell lines like glioma through the selective replication strategy. Using four apoptosis detection methods, namely MTT, LDH, TUNEL, and Annexin V assays, we evaluated the apoptotic effect of BoHV-4 Movar33/63 reference strain along with a recombinant BoHV-4 expressing EGFP in U87 MG cells (human glioblastoma cell line), MDA MB-231 (human breast cancer cell line), and MCF10a (non-tumorigenic human mammary epithelial cell line). Our findings indicate that this virus can replicate and induce apoptosis in these cell lines and hinder in vitro proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. In conclusion, BoHV-4 has in vitro potential as a novel oncolytic virus in human cancer therapy. However, its replication potential in the MCF10a cells as a non-tumorigenic human mammary epithelial cell line is a concern in using this virus in cancer therapy, at least against human mammary tumors. Further studies must therefore be conducted to examine the specific apoptotic pathways induced by this virus to move on to further experiments.