Journal
GENE THERAPY
Volume 9, Issue 13, Pages 889-897Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/sj.gt.3301711
Keywords
RANTES intrakine; lentiviral vector; HIV-1; T-lymphocytes; gene therapy; quantitative real-time PCR
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Funding
- NIAID NIH HHS [R01-AI48480] Funding Source: Medline
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Intrakines, modified intracellular chemokines, offer a novel strategy to prevent cellular entry of HIV-1 by blocking the surface expression of HIV-1 co-receptors. To investigate potential clinical applications of the RANTES-intrakine, we explored the use of HIV-1-based lentiviral vectors for therapeutic gene transfer into T-lymphocytes. RANTES-intrakine genes can be efficiently transduced into primary human T-lymphocytes by lentiviral vectors, especially when human T-lymphocytes were stimulated with CD3 and CD28 antibodies. The transduced T cells showed decreased surface expression of the chemokine receptor CCR-5, as well as CCR-1 and CCR-3. This lentivirus-mediated approach to intrakine gene transfer protected human T-lymphocytes from infection by a variety of R5-tropic HIV-1 strains. A quantitative real-time PCR assay, developed to monitor cells for HIV entry and persistence, revealed persistent low copy numbers of proviral HIV DNA in RANTES intrakine-transduced T-lymphocytes during 3-week culture, suggesting that viruses produced from infected untransduced cell populations were unable to infect the surrounding transduced T-lymphocytes. We conclude that targeting HIV-1 co-receptors to block virus entry with lentiviral vectors is an attractive approach to the control of HIV-1 infection.
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