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Marker gene transfer into human haemopoietic cells using a herpesvirus saimiri-based vector

Abstract

Herpesvirus-based gene therapy vectors offer an attractive alternative to retroviral vectors because of their episomal nature and ability to accommodate large transgenes. Saimiriine herpesvirus 2 (HVS) is a prototypical gamma-2 herpesvirus that can latently infect numerous different cell types. A cosmid-generated HVS vector in which transforming genes have been deleted and the marker gene encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein (HVS-GFP) has been incorporated was evaluated for its potential to transduce CD34+ haemopoietic progenitors selected from cord blood. Expression of GFP could subsequently be readily detected in cells of the erythroid lineage in both CFU-GEMM assays and liquid differentiation cultures. These results confirm the potential of HVS as a candidate vector for gene therapy applications using primitive haemopoietic cells and suggest that it may be applicable to disorders affecting cells of the erythroid lineage.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Liz Straszynski for assistance with flow cytometry and Ewan Morrison for help with microscopy. This work was supported in part by NTRAC, CRUK and Yorkshire Cancer Research. GD is an MRC Research Training Fellow. We thank Dr Adrian Whitehouse for provision of plasmids for probe preparation and Rehka Parma for virus preparation.

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Doody, G., Leek, J., Bali, A. et al. Marker gene transfer into human haemopoietic cells using a herpesvirus saimiri-based vector. Gene Ther 12, 373–379 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.gt.3302422

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.gt.3302422

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