Promoter-controlled infectivity-enhanced conditionally replicative adenoviral vectors for the treatment of gastric cancer

Background Gastric cancer is the fourth most common malignancy worldwide. Adenoviral vectors (Ads) have been applied for gene therapy of various cancers because of their high transduction efficiency. However, the infectivity of gastrointestinal cancer cells is poor due to the limited expression of the Coxsackie-adenovirus receptor (CAR). In addition, few tumor-specific promoters (TSPs) have been characterized for this type of cancer. To overcome these problems, we proposed TSP-driven conditionally replicating adenoviruses (CRAds) with fiber modification for virotherapy of gastric cancer.