Adeno-associated virus mediated gene transfer into lung cancer cells promoting CD40 ligand-based immunotherapy

Revolutionizing Lung Cancer Treatment: Innovative CRISPR-Cas9 Delivery Strategies

Lung carcinoma, including both non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC), remains a significant global health challenge due to its high morbidity and mortality rates. The objsective of this review is to meticulously examine the current advancements and strategies in the delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology for the treatment of lung carcinoma. This technology heralds a new era in molecular biology, offering unprecedented precision in genomic modifications. However, its therapeutic potential is contingent upon the development of effective delivery mechanisms that ensure the efficient and specific transport of gene-editing tools to tumor cells. We explore a variety of delivery approaches, such as viral vectors, lipid-based nanoparticles, and physical methods, highlighting their respective advantages, limitations, and recent breakthroughs. This review also delves into the translational and clinical significance of these strategies, discussing preclinical and clinical studies that investigate the feasibility, efficacy, and safety of CRISPR-Cas9 delivery for lung carcinoma. By scrutinizing the landscape of ongoing clinical trials and offering translational perspectives, we aim to elucidate the current state and future directions of this rapidly evolving field. The review is structured to first introduce the problem and significance of lung carcinoma, followed by an overview of CRISPR-Cas9 technology, a detailed examination of delivery strategies, and an analysis of clinical applications and regulatory considerations. Our discussion concludes with future perspectives and challenges, such as optimizing delivery strategies, enhancing specificity, mitigating immunogenicity concerns, and addressing regulatory issues. This comprehensive overview seeks to provide insights into the potential of CRISPR-Cas9 as a revolutionary approach for targeted therapies and personalized medicine in lung carcinoma, emphasizing the importance of delivery strategy development in realizing the full potential of this groundbreaking technology.

Oncolytic viruses in lung cancer treatment: a review article

Lung cancer has a high morbidity rate worldwide due to its resistance to therapy. So new treatment options are needed to improve the outcomes of lung cancer treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of oncolytic viruses (OVs) as a new type of cancer treatment. In this study, 158 articles from PubMed and Scopus from 1994 to 2022 were reviewed on the effectiveness of OVs in the treatment of lung cancer. The oncolytic properties of eight categories of OVs and their interactions with treatment options were investigated. OVs can be applied as a promising immunotherapy option, as they are reproduced selectively in different types of cancer cells, cause tumor cell lysis and trigger efficient immune responses.

Evolution of CD8+ T Cell Receptor (TCR) Engineered Therapies for the Treatment of Cancer

Engineered T cell receptor T (TCR-T) cell therapy has facilitated the generation of increasingly reliable tumor antigen-specific adaptable cellular products for the treatment of human cancer. TCR-T cell therapies were initially focused on targeting shared tumor-associated peptide targets, including melanoma differentiation and cancer-testis antigens. With recent technological developments, it has become feasible to target neoantigens derived from tumor somatic mutations, which represents a highly personalized therapy, since most neoantigens are patient-specific and are rarely shared between patients. TCR-T therapies have been tested for clinical efficacy in treating solid tumors in many preclinical studies and clinical trials all over the world. However, the efficacy of TCR-T therapy for the treatment of solid tumors has been limited by a number of factors, including low TCR avidity, off-target toxicities, and target antigen loss leading to tumor escape. In this review, we discuss the process of deriving tumor antigen-specific TCRs, including the identification of appropriate tumor antigen targets, expansion of antigen-specific T cells, and TCR cloning and validation, including techniques and tools for TCR-T cell vector construction and expression. We highlight the achievements of recent clinical trials of engineered TCR-T cell therapies and discuss the current challenges and potential solutions for improving their safety and efficacy, insights that may help guide future TCR-T studies in cancer.

AAV-Containing Exosomes as a Novel Vector for Improved Gene Delivery to Lung Cancer Cells

Lung carcinoma is the most common type of cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Among the numerous therapeutic strategies for the treatment of lung cancer, adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated gene transfer has been demonstrated to have the potential to effectively suppress tumor growth or reverse the progression of the disease in a number of preclinical studies. AAV vector has a safety profile; however, the relatively low delivery efficacy to particular subtypes of lung carcinoma has limited its prospective clinical translation. Exosomes are nanosized extracellular vesicles secreted from nearly all known cell types. Exosomes have a membrane-enclosed structure carrying a range of cargo molecules for efficient intercellular transfer of functional entities, thus are considered as a superior vector for drug delivery. In the present study, we developed a novel strategy to produce and purify AAV-containing exosomes (AAVExo) from AAV-packaging HEK 293T cells. The cellular uptake capacity of exosomes assisted and enhanced AAV entry into cells and protected AAV from antibody neutralization, which was a serious challenge for AAV in vivo application. We tested a list of lung cancer cell lines representing non-small-cell lung cancer and small-cell lung cancer and found that AAVExo apparently improved the gene transfer efficiency compared to conventional AAV vector. Our in vitro results were supported in vivo in a lung cancer xenograft rodent model. Additionally, we evaluated the gene delivery efficiency in the presence of neutralizing antibody on lung cancer cells. The results demonstrated that AAVExo-mediated gene transfer was not impacted, while the AAV vectors were significantly blocked by the neutralizing antibody. Taken together, we established an efficient methodology for AAVExo purification, and the purified AAVExo largely enhanced gene delivery to lung cancer cells with remarkable resistance to antibody neutralization.

TCR Redirected T Cells for Cancer Treatment: Achievements, Hurdles, and Goals

Adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) is a rapidly evolving therapeutic approach designed to harness T cell specificity and function to fight diseases. Based on the evidence that T lymphocytes can mediate a potent anti-tumor response, initially ACT solely relied on the isolation, in vitro expansion, and infusion of tumor-infiltrating or circulating tumor-specific T cells. Although effective in a subset of cases, in the first ACT clinical trials several patients experienced disease progression, in some cases after temporary disease control. This evidence prompted researchers to improve ACT products by taking advantage of the continuously evolving gene engineering field and by improving manufacturing protocols, to enable the generation of effective and long-term persisting tumor-specific T cell products. Despite recent advances, several challenges, including prioritization of antigen targets, identification, and optimization of tumor-specific T cell receptors, in the development of tools enabling T cells to counteract the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, still need to be faced. This review aims at summarizing the major achievements, hurdles and possible solutions designed to improve the ACT efficacy and safety profile in the context of liquid and solid tumors.

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors in cancer gene therapy

Gene delivery vectors based on adeno-associated virus (AAV) have been utilized in a large number of gene therapy clinical trials, which have demonstrated their strong safety profile and increasingly their therapeutic efficacy for treating monogenic diseases. For cancer applications, AAV vectors have been harnessed for delivery of an extensive repertoire of transgenes to preclinical models and, more recently, clinical trials involving certain cancers. This review describes the applications of AAV vectors to cancer models and presents developments in vector engineering and payload design aimed at tailoring AAV vectors for transduction and treatment of cancer cells. We also discuss the current status of AAV clinical development in oncology and future directions for AAV in this field.

Self-complementary adeno-associated virus 5-mediated gene transduction of a novel CD40L mutant confers direct antitumor effects in lung carcinoma

CD40 ligand (CD40L) gene therapy offers a potentially useful option for lung cancer due to its multiple antitumor activities. However, membrane-bound CD40L may be proteolytically cleaved to form soluble CD40L (sCD40L), which results in adverse effects. In a previous study by our group, it was demonstrated that recombinant self-complementary adeno-associated virus 5 (scAAV5) efficiently delivered genes to lung cancer cells. In the present study, an scAAV5 expressing a non-cleavable human CD40L mutant (scAAV5-CD40L-M) was generated and its direct antitumor effects in lung cancer were evaluated. Transduction with scAAV5-CD40L-M resulted in effective expression of CD40L on the cell surface with low levels of cleaved sCD40L, which significantly reduced the percentage of viable cells and promoted caspase-3-dependent apoptosis of CD40-positive lung carcinoma A549 cells, compared with scAAV5-CD40L transduction (P<0.05). Furthermore, treatment with scAAV5-CD40L-M exerted a significant antitumor effect against CD40-positive A549 xenografts by inducing apoptosis (P<0.05) with few side effects. Gene therapy using an scAAV5 vector expressing non-cleavable human CD40L mutant may therefore have direct antitumor effects against CD40-positive lung cancers. These tumoricidal effects of scAAV5-CD40L-M treatment make it a promising therapeutic technique for the treatment of lung cancer.

Comparative analysis of the transduction efficiency of five adeno associated virus serotypes and VSV-G pseudotype lentiviral vector in lung cancer cells

BACKGROUND

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the US. Recombinant vectors based on adeno-associated virus (AAV) and lentivirus are promising delivery tools for gene therapy due to low toxicity and long term expression. The efficiency of the gene delivery system is one of the most important factors directly related to the success of gene therapy.

METHODS

We infected SCLC cell lines, SHP-77, DMS 53, NCI-H82, NCI-H69, NCI-H727, NCI-H1155, and NSCLC cell lines, NCI-H23, NCI-H661, and NCI-H460 with VSV-G pseudo-typed lentivirus or 5 AAV serotypes, AAV2/1, AAV2/2, AAV2/4, AAV2/5, and AAV2/8 expressing the CMV promoter mCherry or green fluorescent protein transgene (EGFP). The transduction efficiency was analyzed by fluorescent microscopy and flow cytometry.

RESULTS

Of all the serotypes of AAV examined, AAV2/1 was the optimal serotype in most of the lung cancer cell lines except for NCI-H69 and NCI-H82. The highest transduction rate achieved with AAV2/1 was between 30-50% at MOI 100. Compared to all AAV serotypes, lentivirus had the highest transduction efficiency of over 50% at MOI 1. Even in NCI-H69 cells resistant to all AAV serotypes, lentivirus had a 10-40% transduction rate. To date, AAV2 is the most widely-used serotype to deliver a transgene. Our results showed the transduction efficiency of AAVs tested was AAV2/1 > AA2/5 = AAV2/2> > AAV2/4 and AAV2/8.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated that VSV-G pseudotyped lentivirus and AAV2/1 can mediate expression of a transgene for lung cancer gene therapy. Overall, our results showed that lentivirus is the best candidate to deliver a transgene into lung cancer cells for treatment.

Tools from viruses: bacteriophage successes and beyond

Viruses are ubiquitous and can infect any of the three existing cellular lineages (Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya). Despite the persisting negative public perception of these entities, scientists learnt how to domesticate some of them. The study of molecular mechanisms essential to the completion of viral cycles has greatly contributed to deciphering fundamental processes in biology. Nowadays, viruses have entered the biotechnological era and numerous applications have already been developed. Viral-derived tools are used to manipulate genetic information, detect, diagnose, control and cure infectious diseases, or even design new structural assemblies. With the recent advances in the field of metagenomics, an overwhelming amount of information on novel viruses has become available. As current tools have been historically developed from a limited number of viruses, the potential of discoveries from new archaeal, bacterial and eukaryotic viruses may be limited only by our understanding of the multiple facets of viral cycles.

Self-complementary adeno-associated viral vectors for gene therapy of hemophilia B: progress and challenges

Therapies currently used for hemophilia involve injection of protein concentrates that are expensive, invasive and associated with side effects such as development of neutralizing antibodies (inhibitors) that diminish therapeutic efficacy. Gene transfer is an attractive alternative to circumvent these issues. However, until now, clinical trials using gene therapy to treat hemophilia have failed to demonstrate sustained efficacy, although a vector based on a self-complementary adeno-associated virus has recently shown promise. This article will briefly outline a novel gene-transfer approach using self-complementary adeno-associated viral vectors using hemophilia B as a target disorder. This approach is currently being evaluated in the clinic. We will provide an overview of the development of self-complementary adeno-associated virus vectors as well as preclinical and clinical data with this vector system.

Long-term luciferase expression monitored by bioluminescence imaging after adeno-associated virus-mediated fetal gene delivery in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

The safety and efficiency of fetal adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene delivery in rhesus monkeys and long-term monitoring of transgene expression by bioluminescence imaging (BLI) were evaluated. Early second-trimester fetal monkeys were administered AAV2/5, AAV2/9, or AAV2/10 vector supernatant preparations expressing firefly luciferase under the control of the cytomegalovirus promoter, using an intrathoracic (n = 6) or intramyocardial (n = 6) approach and established ultrasound-guided techniques. Postnatal BLI was performed monthly up to 6 months postnatal age (n = 12) and then every 3 months thereafter to monitor transgene expression up to 24 months postnatal age (27 months after gene transfer; n = 6). All AAV serotypes showed greater than 1.0 x 10(9) photons/sec at all time points evaluated with limited biodistribution to nontargeted anatomical sites. The highest levels of bioluminescence (photons per second) observed were noted with AAV2/9 and AAV2/10 when the three vector constructs were compared. To correlate in vivo findings at the tissue level, specimens were collected from selected animals and analyzed. Three-dimensional reconstruction showed that firefly luciferase expression was consistent with imaging and morphometric measures. These findings suggest that (1) high levels of AAV-mediated firefly luciferase expression can be found after fetal AAV gene transfer and without any evidence of adverse effects; (2) the intercostal muscles, myocardium, and muscular component of the diaphragm of developing fetuses are readily transduced with AAV2/5, AAV2/9, or AAV2/10; and (3) postnatal outcomes and long-term luciferase expression can be effectively monitored by BLI in young rhesus monkeys.