(MEDICAL NEWS) – A plant virus that infects legumes, called cowpea mosaic virus, has a special power that you may not have known about: when injected into a tumor, it triggers the immune system to treat the cancer – even metastatic cancer – and prevents it from recurring.
For the past seven years, researchers at the University of California San Diego and Dartmouth College have been studying and testing cowpea mosaic virus – in the form of nanoparticles – as a cancer immunotherapy and have reported promising results in lab mice and companion dog patients. Its performance has been unmatched by other cancer-fighting strategies the team has tested. But the exact reasons for its success have remained a mystery.
In a new study published in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, the researchers uncover details that explain why cowpea mosaic virus in particular is exceptionally effective against cancer.