Scientists have found a new way to enhance the ability of a rabbit virus commonly found in Australia to fight a deadly type of brain tumour cell. Scientists used a combination of a drug and the virus to make brain tumour-initiating cells more sensitive to therapies using the virus.

The combination of the drug, called rapamycin, and the myxoma virus, carried by wild rabbits in Australia and parts of Europe, work against the most common type of brain tumour, called glioblastoma. Myxoma has already been used in other studies trying to develop anti-cancer therapies because of its effectiveness to fight cells that cause glioblastoma tumours.

However, the new study, published in the journal Neuro-Oncology, indicates that the virus still needs to be enhanced to better block cells that can cause glioblastoma tumour to recur in the human body. To date, there is still no effective long-term treatment developed for glioblastoma.

The National Cancer Institute reported that people who are diagnosed with the condition commonly live 12 to 15 months after the diagnosis. The lack of effective, long-term treatments pushed the researchers to analyse how to repurpose potential drugs to treat the tumour.

"We want to make a difference with patients. One of the ways we can do that is by repurposing drugs, which holds a lot of promise," said Dr Peter Forsyth, the study's principal investigator and chairman of the neuro-oncology department at Moffitt Cancer Centre in Tampa. However, the research team is not able to determine if rapamycin is the best drug to work with the myxoma virus.

Forsyth analysed 73 other compounds that are all currently in clinical development. The researchers found three compounds that worked effectively against the cells that initiate brain tumour growth.

The myxoma virus, when paired with the drugs axitinib, rofecoxib and premetrexed, reduced the capability of the tumour-initiating cells by 20 percent or so compared to the effect of the virus alone.The compounds were never before determined to be effective to interact with a cancer-killing virus.

The US Food and Drug Administration has already approved the drug Axitinib to be used to treat kidney cancer. The researchers identified the drug as the most effective against cancer cells, which can significantly increase cell death.

The findings will help to identify drug-virus combinations that can contribute to treatments that use cancer-killing viruses, the researchers said. A further study will be conducted in animals to see the effects of the most effective compounds and its combination with the myxoma virus, according to Dr Grant McFadden, a myxoma virus expert and a professor at the UF College of Medicine.

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