Cystic fibrosis is a monogenic disorder with significant morbidity and mortality, despite advances in conventional treatment. It is a good candidate for gene therapy and this field has progressed rapidly since the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene was cloned. We will review the specific questions to address for successful cystic fibrosis gene therapy, such as the extraand...

T cell development is regulated at two major control points where maturation, proliferation, and antigen receptor gene rearrangement are coordinated. Progression through these developmental control points is dependent upon the expression of different forms of the T cell receptor. Here we show that the MAP kinase cascade is a regulator of the differentiation of immature thymocytes from double-ne...

Although conventional breeding programs in fish parallel those in chicken, unconventional techniques not available in chicken breeding, such as intersmecific hybridization (Schwartz, 1981), ploidy manipulation and gynogenesis (Thorgaard and Allen, 1987), are used in breeding of fishes. Within the last five years, another unconventional means of genetic manipulation, gene transfer, has become av...

With the specter of dwindling biotic diversity, need is increased for preservatio n of available germplasm . Plant germplasm may be preserved in a variety of ways including seed storage, cryopreservation, and tissue culture . A new method of germplasm preservatio n may be through the storage of DNA libraries, which maintain in test tubes the genes tha t encode life's diversity . This new area o...

In the past, many researchers considered viral vectors to be the most promising candidates to transfer genetic material into the corpora for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. However, at present, no viral vectors have progressed to human trials. In contrast, the use of naked gene therapy, a plasmid expressing the human Maxi-K potassium channel, is the only gene therapy treatment to be eval...

The ability to introduce isolated DNA into eukaryotic cells has tremendous influence on advance in molecular biology. During the past decades, a wide repertoire of gene transfer techniques has evolved. Recently, with the development of attractive strategies for gene therapy, successful gene delivery has gained importance again and become a major challenge in this field. The purpose of this arti...