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Bad for cats, good for humans? Modified feline immunodeficiency virus for gene therapy

1999; American Society for Clinical Investigation; Volume: 104; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1172/jci8838

1558-8238

Ronald G. Crystal,

Animal Genetics and Reproduction

When the concepts of gene therapy were evolving in the late 1980s, the focus was primarily on the hereditary disorders. This was a logical choice for the budding community of gene therapists, in that most hereditary disorders are autosomal recessive deficiency diseases that can theoretically be corrected by transfer of sufficient amounts of the normal gene to the cells manifesting the disease. This concept may be logical, but putting it into practice has been a real challenge. In this issue of the JCI, Wang et al. (1) describe the adaptation of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) to transfer the cystic fibrosis (CF) transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) cDNA to the respiratory epithelium. This strategy represents a new approach to overcoming some of the challenges in using gene therapy to correct the respiratory manifestations of CF.