Novel Strategy for Targeting Therapeutic Retroviral Vectors Specifically to Prostate Cancer Cells.

摘要

This grant proposal was focused upon the use of retroviral receptor- ligand bridge proteins to target therapeutic retroviral vectors specifically to markers that are expressed on the surfaces of prostate cancer cells. These projects were aimed at targeting retroviral vectors via heregulin receptors which are overexpressed on prostate cancer cells and via TAG-72, a prostate cancer cell-specific marker. In addition, we proposed to improve the efficiency of targeted viral infection by employing bridge proteins that contain function- enhancing amino acid substitutions in the retroviral receptor domain and proposed generating retroviral vectors containing novel suicide genes for therapeutic purposes. The studies have led to the generation of an efficient, specific and versatile system for targeting retroviral infection to specific cell types. Viral targeting has been achieved using retroviral receptor-ligand, and -single chain antibody bridge proteins that are directed toward various markers expressed on cancer cells, including those of prostate cancer.