Recent progress in tumor biology, virology and immunology has led to new approaches to the gene therapy for cancer. Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) based vectors are attractive vectors for gene therapy use due to a number of favorable biologic features. Several characterist ics render HSV suitable for gene therapy, including high transduction efficiency, ability to transduce non-dividing cells, high...

DNA viruses are often used as vectors for foreign gene expression, but large DNA region from cloned or authentic viral genomes must usually be handled to generate viral vectors. Here, we present a unique system for generating adenoviral vectors by directly substituting a gene of interest in a small transfected plasmid with a replaced gene in a replicating viral genome in Cre-expressing 293 cell...

The ability to produce extremely small and circular supercoiled vectors has opened new territory for improving non-viral gene therapy vectors. In this work, we compared transfection of supercoiled DNA vectors ranging from 383 to 4,548 bp, each encoding shRNA against GFP under control of the H1 promoter. We assessed knockdown of GFP by electroporation into HeLa cells. All of our vectors entered ...

Traditional approach of inactivated or live-attenuated vaccine immunization has resulted in impressive success in the reduction and control of infectious disease outbreaks. However, many pathogens remain less amenable to deal with the traditional vaccine strategies, and more appropriate vaccine strategy is in need. Recent discoveries that led to increased understanding of viral molecular biolog...

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a non-pathogenic humanDNAviruswith a unique profile of biological properties that have been of interest to molecular virologists for many years (Berns, 1990; Carter, 1990; Carter et al., 1990). Recently,AAV has also attracted interest as a vector for gene transfer (Carter, 1992; Flotte, 1993a; Hermonat andMuzyczka, 1984; Tratschin et al., 1984). In a general sens...

Recombinant vectors can be used to deliver antigens and to stimulate immune responses in humans. Viral vectors possess various intrinsic properties which may lend to advantages and disadvantages for usage for a given therapeutic application [reviewed by Larocca and Schlom] [1]. The safety and flexibility of recombinant viral vectors have lead to their usage in gene therapy, virotherapy, and vac...

Human tumours typically harbour multiple mutations in tumour suppressor genes and oncogenes. Histologically identical tumours in different patients often exhibit different combinations of genetic alterations and it is now also evident that considerable genetic heterogeneity can exist between cells within individual tumours. A major ongoing research challenge remains to determine the functional ...

Cancer gene therapy expanded and reached its pinnacle in research in the last decade. Both viral and non-viral vectors have entered clinical trials, and significant successes have been achieved. However, a systemic administration of a vector, illustrating safe, efficient, and targeted gene delivery to solid tumors has proven to be a major challenge. In this review, we summarize the current prog...