Summary:
Graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD) is a frequent and dangerous complication of allogenic transplantations of bone
marrow. Gene therapy offers a way to deal with the problem. It is based on the introduction of suicide genes (SG)
into the donor´s Tl ymphocytes, which are responsible for the development of GVHD. If it develops, the presence
of SG in the effector cells gives an opportunity to get rid of them, because their products are capable of changing
otherwise innocuous substances into highly cytotoxic metabolites. For the transduction of SG retrovirus-based vectors
are used. The authors tried to employ for this purpose recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAV). The attempt
was unsuccessful. When using rAAV as vectors, the efficacy of transduction was very low. Further experiments
indicated that this failure was dueto the absence ofreceptor for AAV in Tlymphocytes. It seems clear that until the
surface of rAAV is modified to facilitate their penetration into Tc ells, they cannot replace retroviruses for transfer
of SG into this cell type.
Key words:
gene therapy, GVHD, AAV.
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