Complex role of NK cells in regulation of oncolytic virus-bortezomib therapy.

In the present work, we investigated the role of natural killer (NK) cells in combination therapy with oncolytic virus (OV) and bortezomib, a proteasome inhibitor. NK cells display rapid and potent immunity to metastatic and hematological cancers, and they overcome immunosuppressive effects of tumor microenvironment. We developed a mathematical model to address the question of how the density of NK cells affects the growth of the tumor. We found that the antitumor efficacy increases when the endogenous NKs are depleted and also when exogenous NK cells are injected into the tumor. These predictions were validated by our in vivo and in vitro experiments.