Recently, Hu Zhihong, Wang Manli, Luo Minhua and Zeng Wenbo from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, jointly published a research paper entitled "Efficient Strategy for Synthesizing Vector Free and Oncolytic Herpes Simplex Type 1 Viruses" on the international academic journal ACS Synthetic Biology. This research carried out the construction and optimization of an artificial synthesis platform based on type I herpes simplex virus type F, and used this platform to transform oncolytic viruses.

Type I herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) has important application prospects as an oncolytic virus in cancer treatment. In this study, the research team developed a new method for efficient synthesis and rescue of HSV-1 virus. Unlike traditional methods of synthesizing complete genomes containing vector sequences in vitro and transfecting them into mammalian cells to rescue viruses, the research team synthesized HSV-1 genome fragments containing homologous arms through transformation related homologous recombination (TAR) in yeast, and then co transfected the linearized genome fragments into mammalian cells to rescue and synthesize viruses. Using this strategy, the team successfully rescued a synthetic virus F-Syn containing the complete genome of HSV-1 F strain. The study confirmed that the pathogenic biological characteristics of F-Syn are similar to those of the parent virus. In addition, by combining TAR with in vitro CRISPR/Cas9 editing technology, the team constructed an oncolytic virus F-Syn-O with missing viral genes ICP6, ICP34.5, and ICP47, and tested the anti-tumor effect of F-Syn-O at the cellular level. The research results indicate that F-Syn-O can successfully establish infection in various human tumor cell lines and induce dose-dependent cytotoxicity. The relevant research has laid an important foundation for the construction and optimization of HSV-1 oncolytic virus.

Xiao Han, a doctoral student at Wuhan Institute of Virology, is the first author of this paper. Researcher Hu Zhihong, Researcher Wang Manli, and Young Researcher Zeng Wenbo from Wuhan Institute of Virology are the co corresponding authors of this paper. This study was supported by the National Key Research Program and the Hubei Outstanding Youth Natural Science Foundation.