Rabbit Poxvirus Kills Brain Cancer Cells

Researchers have used myxoma virus, a poxvirus that causes fatal myxomatosis in rabbits, to kill human brain cancer cells both in tissue culture and after transplantation into mice.

After earlier studies showed that the mxyoma virus could survive in a variety of human tumor cells in culture, investigators at the University of Western Ontario (London, Canada) and the University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) performed a series of experiments designed to test its effectiveness against a human malignant brain cancer (glioma).

They reported in the November 1, 2005, issue of Cancer Research that when used to infect eight different glioma cell lines growing in tissue culture, the myxoma virus reproduced in seven of the lines and killed the cells.

In another series of experiments, a mouse model was created by transplantation of human glioma cells into the animals' brains. More...