Sensitivity of Primary Human Glioblastoma Cell Lines to the Mumps Virus Vaccine Strain

The sensitivity of human glioblastoma cells to virus-mediated oncolysis was investigated on five patient-derived cell lines. Primary glioblastoma cells (Gbl13n, Gbl16n, Gbl17n, Gbl25n, and Gbl27n) were infected with tenfold serial dilutions of the Leningrad-3 strain of the mumps virus, and virus reproduction and cytotoxicity were monitored for 96 −120 h. Immortalized human non-tumor NKE cells were used as controls to determine the virus specificity. Four out of the five glioblastoma cell lines examined were susceptible to mumps virus infection, whereas no virus reproduction was observed in the non-tumor cell line. Moreover, the level of proapoptotic caspase-3 activity was increased in all infected cells 48 h after infection. The kinetics of viral RNA accumulation in the studied glioblastoma cell lines was comparable with the rate of cell death. The data suggest that glioblastoma cell lines were permissive for the mumps virus. Glioblastoma cell lines differed in type I IFN production in response to the mumps virus infection. In addition, it was shown that MV infection was able to induce immunogenic death of glioblastoma cells.