MINI REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1687190
Harnessing Oncolytic Viruses to Overcome Immunosuppression in Breast Cancer: From Mechanisms to Clinical Translation
Provisionally accepted
- 1honghe cancer hospital, Gejiu City, China
- 2Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
- 3the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Gejiu City, China
- 4People's Hospital of Yuxi City, Yuxi, China
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Oncolytic viruses (OVs) possess dual advantages in cancer immunotherapy: they selectively replicate within and lyse tumor cells while simultaneously releasing tumor-associated antigens to recruit and activate immune cells within the local tumor microenvironment (TME), thereby inducing robust and sustained antitumor immunity. Furthermore, these viruses can serve as tumor-targeting vectors for immunomodulation and synergize with other immunotherapeutic approaches. As such, oncolytic virotherapy holds significant potential to overcome the low response rates of breast cancer to existing immunotherapies and expand the therapeutic arsenal. This review systematically elucidates the application and mechanisms of this emerging immunotherapy in addressing the challenges of conventional breast cancer treatments. It also discusses engineering strategies to enhance antitumor immunity, highlights recent preclinical and clinical studies on rational combinations of OVs with other therapies, and outlines current challenges and future prospects.
Keywords: breast cancer, oncolytic virus, Tumor Microenvironment, Cancer Vaccines, combination therapy
Received: 17 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kong, Liu, Dong, Peng, Zhang, Zhang and Su. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Li Zhang, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
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