OvirusTdb: A Repository of Oncolytic Viruses used in Cancer Treatment

Abstract One of the emerging technologies to fight against cancer is oncolytic virus-based immunotherapy which directly lysis tumor cells. Recently, the FDA approved an oncolytic virus named T-vec for the treatment of melanoma; several hundred other viruses are in clinical trials. In order to facilitate the scientific community to fight against cancer, we build a repository of oncolytic viruses called OvirusTdb ( https://webs.iiitd.edu.in/raghava/ovirustdb/ ). This is a manually curated repository where information is curated from research papers and patents. The current version of the repository maintains comprehensive information on therapeutically important oncolytic viruses with 5927 records where each record has 25 fields such as the virus species, cancer cell line, synergism with anti-cancer drugs, and many more. It stores information on 09 types of DNA and 15 types of RNA viruses; 300 recombinant and 09 wildtype viral strains; tested against 124 cancer types and 427 cancer cell lines. Approximately, 1047 records show improved anti-cancer response using combinatorial approach of chemotherapeutic agents with virus strains. Nearly, 3243 and 1506 records show cancer cell death via apoptosis induction and immune activation, respectively. In summary, a user-friendly web repository of oncolytic viruses for information retrieval and analysis have been developed to facilitate researchers in designing and discovering new oncolytic viruses for effective cancer treatment.