The use of engineered viral strains such as gene therapy vectors and oncolytic viruses (OV) to selectively destroy cancer cells is poised to make a major impact in the clinic and revolutionize cancer therapy. In particular, several studies have shown that OV therapy is safe and well tolerated in humans and can infect a broad range of cancers. Yet in clinical studies OV therapy has highly variable response rates. The heterogeneous nature of tumors is widely accepted to be a major obstacle for OV therapeutics and highlights a need for strategies to improve viral replication efficacy. Here, we describe the development of a new class of small molecules for selectively enhancing OV replication in cancer tissue. Medicinal chemistry studies led to the identification of compounds that enhance multiple OVs and gene therapy vectors. Lead compounds increase OV growth up to 2000-fold in vitro and demonstrate remarkable selectivity for cancer cells over normal tissue ex vivo and in vivo. These small molecules also demonstrate enhanced stability with reduced electrophilicity and are highly tolerated in animals. This pharmacoviral approach expands the scope of OVs to include resistant tumors, further potentiating this transformative therapy. It is easily foreseeable that this approach can be applied to therapeutically enhance other attenuated viral vectors.

The effects of ice recrystallization are well-recognized throughout the literature. This phenomenon is the major cause for cellular damage during thawing of cells, ultimately reducing post-thaw viability and function. In this paper, we describe a method for quantifying the inhibitory effect on ice recrystallization of novel small molecules that are cryoprotectants for red blood cells. The method is ideally suited to the splat-cooling assay, where high-ice volume fractions are present. Using our method, we have derived first-order rate constants for the increase in the average crystal size based upon a "binning" approach of ice crystals as a function of size and time. Using this reliable metric, dose−response curves were constructed to obtain IC 50 values. Two very effective inhibitors of ice recrystallization, p-methoxyphenyl β-D-glucopyranoside (PMP-Glc) and pbromophenyl β-D-glucopyranoside (pBrPh-Glc), had IC 50 values of 16.3 and 14.8 mM, respectively. Interestingly, the Hill slopes from these dose−response curves were 5.12 ± 0.81 for PMP-Glc and 3.12 ± 0.62 for pBrPh-Glc, suggesting that an element of cooperativity may be involved in the mechanism by which these compounds inhibit ice recrystallization. This is particularly interesting, as unlike antifreeze (glyco)proteins, these small molecules do not bind to the ice surface. ■ INTRODUCTIONRecrystallization is an extensively studied phenomenon, and its importance in the field of geology and metallurgy has been thoroughly documented. 1,2 The phenomenon is defined as the nucleation and growth of large nondeformed grains in the presence of smaller ones. In deformed grains, the atom arrangement is not ideal, increasing the overall energy of the system. Thus, reorganization to nondeformed grains and an overall decrease in the energy of the system occur. 3−5 As such, recrystallization is a thermodynamically driven kinetic process resulting in an overall reduction in the free energy of the system.In ice, this growth of larger ice crystals at the expense of smaller ones is thought to occur through either grain boundary migration or Ostwald ripening. 6−12 Grain boundary migration occurs through the direct transfer of individual water molecules from smaller unstable ice grains or crystals to larger more favorable ones, resulting in an overall decrease in curvature in an ice crystal and a subsequent reduction in energy. However, grain boundary migration neglects the presence of bulk water or the quasi-liquid layer (QLL) between individual ice crystals. 8 In the Ostwald ripening model, water molecules transfer from the surface of small ice crystals through bulk water and the QLL to larger ice crystals. Smaller ice crystals have a higher surface area to volume ratio, which gives them a higher surface free energy; thus, the Ostwald ripening process results in an overall increase in average ice crystal size and also a reduction in free energy. 10−12 Ice recrystallization has been identified as a problem in the frozen food industry as well as during cryopreservation of bio...