Clinical development of gene therapy: results and lessons from recent successes

Retroviral vectors and transposons for stable gene therapy: advances, current challenges and perspectives

Gene therapy protocols require robust and long-term gene expression. For two decades, retrovirus family vectors have offered several attractive properties as stable gene-delivery vehicles. These vectors represent a technology with widespread use in basic biology and translational studies that require persistent gene expression for treatment of several monogenic diseases. Immunogenicity and insertional mutagenesis represent the main obstacles to a wider clinical use of these vectors. Efficient and safe non-viral vectors are emerging as a promising alternative and facilitate clinical gene therapy studies. Here, we present an updated review for beginners and expert readers on retro and lentiviruses and the latest generation of transposon vectors (sleeping beauty and piggyBac) used in stable gene transfer and gene therapy clinical trials. We discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of these systems such as cellular responses (immunogenicity or genome modification of the target cell) following exogenous DNA integration. Additionally, we discuss potential implications of these genome modification tools in gene therapy and other basic and applied science contexts.

Adeno-associated virus and lentivirus vectors: a refined toolkit for the central nervous system

The last two decades have witnessed the increasing instrumentalization of viruses, which have progressively evolved into highly potent gene transfer vehicles for a wide spectrum of applications. In the context of the central nervous system (CNS), their unique gene delivery features and targeting specificities have been exploited not only to improve our understanding of basic neurobiology, but also to investigate diseases or deliver therapeutic candidates. As a result, we have started moving away from the opportunistic use of recombinant vectors that are derived from naturally existing viruses toward the rational engineering of tailored lentivirus (LV) and adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors for specific use in the CNS.