Document Type
Review
Rights
Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence
Disciplines
1.6 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, Biochemistry and molecular biology, Health-related biotechnology, Gene-based diagnostics and therapeutic interventions, Gene based therapeutics
Abstract
Gene therapy aims to revert diseased phenotypes by the use of both viral and nonviral gene delivery systems. Substantial progress has been made in making gene transfer vehicles more efficient, less toxic, and nonimmunogenic and in allowing long-term transgene expression. One of the key issues in successfully implementing gene therapies in the clinical setting is to be able to regulate gene expression very tightly and consistently as and when it is needed. The regulation ought to be achievable using a compound that should be nontoxic, be able to penetrate into the desired target tissue or organ, and have a half-life of a few hours (as opposed to minutes or days) so that when withdrawn or added (depending on the regulatable system used) gene expression can be turned “on” or “off” quickly and effectively. Also, the genetic switches employed should ideally be nonimmunogenic in the host. The ability to switch transgenes on and off would be of paramount importance not only when the therapy is no longer needed, but also in the case of the development of adverse side effects to the therapy. Many regulatable systems are currently under development and some, i.e., the tetracycline-dependent transcriptional switch, have been used successfully for in vivo preclinical applications. Despite this, there are no examples of switches that have been employed in a human clinical trial. In this review, we aim to highlight the main regulatable systems currently under development, the gene transfer systems employed for their expression, and also the preclinical models in which they have been used successfully. We also discuss the substantial challenges that still remain before these regulatable switches can be employed in the clinical setting.
DOI
10.1016/j.ymthe.2005.03.022
Recommended Citation
Goverdhana S, Puntel M, Xiong W, Zirger JM, Barcia C, Curtin JF, Soffer EB, Mondkar S, King GD, Hu J, Sciascia SA, Candolfi M, Greengold DS, Lowenstein PR, Castro MG. Regulatable gene expression systems for gene therapy applications: progress and future challenges. Mol Ther. 2005 Aug;12(2):189-211. doi:10.1016/j.ymthe.2005.03.022
Funder
NIH, Bram and Elaine Goldsmith Chair in Gene Therapeutics, The Linda Tallen and David Paul Kane Annual Fellowship, Board of Governors at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.
Publication Details
Molecular Therapy 2005 Aug;12(2):189-211. Review. PubMed ID: 15946903