en تخصصي Special مروری Review article <div> <p><strong>Abstract :</strong>&nbsp; Reovirus (respiratory enteric orphan virus), a naturally occurring benign human pathogen, has an inherent ability to target transformed and cancerous cells and cause their lysis, while leaving non-transformed cells relatively unaffected.&nbsp; The efficiency of this innate oncolytic activity of reovirus correlates with expression of the <em>ras</em> oncogene.&nbsp; Cells expressing activated Ras and the related Ras/RalGEF/p38 pathway are more permissive to the reovirus infection than that of untransformed counterparts.&nbsp; <em>Ras</em>-transformation orchestrates selective oncolysis of cancerous cells by mediating efficient virus uncoating as well as by enhancing infectivity and subsequent apoptosis-dependent release of nascent virus particles.&nbsp; Different human and murine cell lines derived from naturally occurring tumors also display similar activation of the <em>ras</em> pathway, and thus present selective susceptibility to reovirus oncolysis under <em>in vitro </em>as well as<em> in vivo </em>conditions.&nbsp; This ability of reovirus to selectively target a wide variety of tumors offers a novel anti-cancer therapeutic option. However, the efficiency of reovirus virotherapy in immunocompetent hosts is compromised due to the presence of anti-viral innate and adaptive immune responses.&nbsp; Hence, the success of this highly promising reovirus oncolytic therapy will likely be enhanced by modulating host immunity.&nbsp;</p> </div> reovirus , cancer , virotherapy , oncolysis , ras oncogene 1 9 http://journal.isv.org.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-43-23&slc_lang=en&sid=1 S.A Gujar 10031947532846002385 10031947532846002385 Yes Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada P.W.K Lee Patrick.lee@dal.ca 10031947532846002386 10031947532846002386 No Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada