Journal
HUMAN GENE THERAPY
Volume 30, Issue 9, Pages 1093-1100Publisher
MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC
DOI: 10.1089/hum.2019.014
Keywords
homocystinuria; non-viral gene therapy; hydrodynamic injection; minicircles; amino acid metabolism; inborn error
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [CA06927, R01GM098772]
- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
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Cystathionine beta-synthase (CBS) deficiency is a recessive inborn error of metabolism characterized by extremely elevated total homocysteine (tHcy) in the blood. Patients diagnosed with CBS deficiency have a variety of clinical problems, including dislocated lenses, osteoporosis, cognitive and behavioral issues, and a significantly increased risk of thrombosis. Current treatment strategies involve a combination of vitamin supplementation and restriction of foods containing the homocysteine precursor methionine. Here, a mouse model for CBS deficiency (Tg-I278T Cbs(-/-)) was used to evaluate the potential of minicircle-based naked DNA gene therapy to treat CBS deficiency. A 2.3 kb DNA-minicircle containing the liver-specific P3 promoter driving the human CBS cDNA (MC.P3-hCBS) was delivered into Tg-I278T Cbs(-/-) mice via a single hydrodynamic tail vein injection. Mean serum tHcy decreased from 351 mu M before injection to 176 mu M 7 days after injection (p = 0.0005), and remained decreased for at least 42 days. Western blot analysis reveals significant minicircle-directed CBS expression in the liver tissue. Liver CBS activity increased 34-fold (12.8 vs. 432 units; p = 0.0004) in MC.P3-hCBS-injected animals. Injection of MC.P3-hCBS in young mice, subsequently followed for 202 days, showed that the vector can ameliorate the mouse homocystinuria alopecia phenotype. The present findings show that minicircle-based gene therapy can lower tHcy in a mouse model of CBS deficiency.
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