Gene Therapy of Breast Cancer: Studies of Selective Promoter/Enhancer-ModifiedVectors to Deliver Suicide Genes

摘要

The overall goal of this project is to develop gene therapy strategies for breastcancer by translation of studies derived from the DF3/MUCl gene. We have completed Tasks 1 and 2 as outlined in the Statement of Work using the DF3 promoter to selectively drive transgenes in breast cancer cells. The DF3 promoter has been used in an adenoviral vector to selectively detect and eliminate breast cancer cells that contaminate hematopoietic stem cell preparations used in autologous bone marrow transplantation. More recent work has involved modification of the DF3 promoter by adding a Tet-enhancer system to increase expression of the transgenes. The requisite plasmids have been constructed and are being integrated into replication-deficient adenoviral vectors to complete Tasks 3 and 4. Other studies have evaluated transduction of dendritic cells (DC) with adenoviral vectors expressing the DF3/MUCl gene.