Adenoviral vectors for treating disease

Abstract

Adenoviral vectors, including mutant adenoviruses, that have restriction sites in the E3 region, that facilitate its partial or total deletion, or select genes contained therein, and compositions and methods for substituting heterologous gene(s), if desired, which gene(s) will exhibit an expression pattern, both in terms of timing and degree of expression, similar to the endogenous adenoviral gene that it replaces, and further optionally including mutations in other parts of the adenoviral genome, including certain E1B or E1A regions, and that have applications for diagnosing or treating disease, preferably disease involving unwanted cell growth, including cancer.

Description

Invention field [0001] The present invention generally relates to the field of gene therapy, and more specifically to an adenovirus vector with preventive or therapeutic use. Background of the invention [0002] Adenovirus is an alternative vector for gene therapy. See, Jolly, D., Cancer Gene Therapy, vol. 1, no. 1-1994: pp51-64. Adenovirus has a thorough knowledge of molecular genetics, making it the preferred vector in this field. Adenovirus is a non-enveloped icosahedral double-stranded DNA virus with a linear genome size of approximately 36 kbp. Each end of the virus genome has a short sequence called terminal inverted repeat (or ITR), which is necessary for virus replication. Part of the viral genome is easily replaced with foreign DNA, and the recombinant adenovirus has a stable structure. [0003] The adenovirus replication cycle is divided into two stages: the early stage and the late stage. In the early stage, the four transcription units E1, E2, E3, and E4 are expressed...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0014] Therefore, although there are vectors with mutations in the E3 region or deletions of most of this region, there has been no adenoviral vector in which selected parts of this region have been removed and replaced by foreign DNA.

Images