ONYX-015 works synergistically with chemotherapy in lung cancer cell lines and primary cultures freshly made from lung cancer patients

p53 mutations and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) have been detected in >50% of lung cancers. Wild-type p53 can prevent replication of damaged DNA and promote apoptosis of cells with abnormal DNA. A human adenovirus, ONYX- 015, which has a deletion in the E1B region, has shown tumor-specific cytolytic effect in tumor cells with nonfunctional p53 and antitumor efficacy that can be augmented by chemotherapeutic agents. A recent report from an independent group, however, indicates that wild-type p53 is necessary for the infection of this replicating virus, and it is in direct contradiction to previous observations of the ONYX group. In this study, we carried out cytopathic effect (CPE) assays using ONYX-015 on five human lung cancer cell lines with known p53 status. Two of these cell lines, NCI-H522 and NCI-H1703, have mutations and LOH in their p53 gene. Both lines were lysed in a dose- dependent manner and showed 100% cytolysis at a multiplicity of infection of 0.1. Two additional cell lines, NCI-H2347 and NCI-H838, both of which have wild-type p53 gene, showed near complete lysis at a multiplicity of infection of 1. We demonstrate here that the lung cancer cells with nonfunctional p53 are at least 10 times more sensitive to ONYX-015 cytolysis than the lung cancer cells with wild-type p53. In addition, standard chemotherapeutic agents (paclitaxol and cisplatin) showed a synergistic effect when combined with ONYX-015, and this effect was p53 mutant dependent. Furthermore, we tested the cytolytic effect of ONYX-015 on a panel (n = 7) of primary first- passage cultures made from freshly resected lung cancers. ONYX-015 lysed primary lung cancer cells in six of seven (86%) primary cultures. Two of four primary cultures treated with chemotherapeutic agents had a synergistic effect with ONYX-015. Our data indicate that wild-type p53 is not required for the infection of this replicating virus, and also we demonstrate that ONYX-015 is effective alone and works synergistically with chemotherapeutic agents in lung cancer cell lines and primary cultures. This study suggests that ONYX-015 may be effective, especially in combination with conventional chemotherapy, in the treatment of patients with lung cancer.