Gene Therapy

Muscular Dystrophies.

Duchenne and other recessive muscular dystrophies are well suited in many ways for gene therapy. These are loss-of-function recessive genetic diseases caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene or in genes for other structural muscle proteins. The normal levels of these proteins are known, as are many of the ways that they function in the muscle cell. There is ample evidence in animal model systems that these diseases can be cured by delivery of functional copies of the gene. This is true in large part because muscle tissue has a tremendous capacity for repair and regeneration, so one could imagine that the heavily damaged muscle could repair itself after successful gene transfer. Muscle tissue is also an excellent target for gene transfer.

Several different approaches have been used to transfer DNA to muscle. The most straightforward approach is the direct intramuscular injection of DNA in a circular form called a plasmid. The advantage to this approach is that it induces little to no immune response, although the overall number of cells expressing the gene is fairly low. In contrast, recombinant adenoviruses are extremely efficient at transferring genes to muscle, but give rise to a potent immune response that results in only short-term expression of the transferred genes. Because the efficiency of adenoviral transfer is so great, huge efforts are underway to reduce the immunogenicity of these vectors. These efforts have produced some significantly improved vectors, and research is now focusing on developing methods to prepare the large quantities necessary for clinical use. Adeno-associated virus combines the extremely high efficiency of adenoviral transfer with the very low immunogenicity of direct DNA transfer. However, this virus has a rather small capacity to carry DNA, so small that it cannot carry the dystrophin gene (one of the largest genes known), which is needed to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

From these examples, it should be clear that many different approaches to gene therapy for muscular dystrophy have been tried, but that each approach suffers from one or more key shortcomings. In addition, all of these approaches to treat muscular dystrophy face one common problem: Although it is easy to transfer genes to a small part of a single muscle, simultaneously delivering a gene to all parts of all the muscles of the body is impossible with today's technology.

Hemophilia and Sickle Cell Disease.

Because of the difficulty in treating diseases such as muscular dystrophy, many researchers have chosen to focus on genetic diseases that may be easier to treat, particularly those resulting from the lack of proteins freely dissolved in the bloodstream. Hemophilia is one such disorder, caused by a lack of blood-clotting proteins. Such patients have long been treated by the infusion of the missing clotting proteins, but this treatment is extremely expensive and requires almost daily injections. Gene therapy holds great promise for these patients, because replacement of the gene that makes the missing protein could permanently eliminate the need for protein injections. It really does not matter what tissue produces these clotting factors as long as the protein is delivered to the bloodstream, so researchers have tried to deliver these genes to muscle and to the liver using several different vectors. Approaches using recombinant adenoviruses to deliver the clotting factor gene to the liver are especially promising, and tests have shown significant clinical improvement in a dog model of hemophilia.

Gain-of-function genetic diseases present a very different sort of challenge because the mutant gene or genes create a new biological activity that actively interferes with the normal functioning of the cell. An example of such a disorder is sickle cell disease. Patients suffering from this disease have a defective hemoglobin protein in their red blood cells. This defective protein can cause their red blood cells to be misshapen, clogging their blood vessels and causing extremely painful and dangerous blood clots. Most of our genes make an RNA transcript, which is then used as a blueprint to make protein. In sickle cell disease, the transcript of the mutant gene needs to be destroyed or repaired in order to prevent the synthesis of mutant hemoglobin.

The molecular repair of these transcripts is possible using special RNA molecules called ribozymes. There are several different kinds of ribozymes: some that destroy their targets, and others that modify and repair their target transcripts. The repair approach was tested in the laboratory on cells containing the sickle cell mutation, and was quite successful, repairing a significant fraction of the mutant transcripts. While patients cannot yet be treated using this technique, the approach illustrates how biologically damaging molecules can be inactivated. Similar approaches are being developed to treat HIV-AIDS infections, and these may one day be used along with other antiviral therapies to treat this dreaded disease.

Cancer.

Very different strategies of gene therapy are used to treat cancer. When treating diseases such as muscular dystrophy, researchers try to deliver genes without detection by the patient's immune system. When treating cancer, the object is often precisely the opposite: to stimulate a patient's immune reaction to the tumor tissue and improve its ability to fight the disease. For this reason, tumor tissue is often transformed by the new gene to produce specific activators of the immune system, such as interleukins or GM-CSF (granulocyte monocyte colony stimulating factor).

Usually, cancer cells are not recognized by the immune system because they are in many ways identical to the patient's normal cells. These stimulating factors activate the immune system and help it recognize and attack the tumor tissue. In another approach, called "suicide therapy," a gene such as the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene (HSV-TK) is transferred to the tumor. This gene normally does not occur in the human body, and it is not metabolically active. After several rounds of gene therapy have built up high levels of TK activity in the tumor, a drug called ganciclovir is given to the patient. This drug is inactive in normal cells, but the TK gene converts it into a potent toxin, killing the tumor cells. Even nearby tumor cells that do not have the TK gene can be killed by a phenomenon called the "bystander effect." This approach not only kills tumor cells directly, but also activates the immune system to further attack the tumor.

Anticancer gene therapy is a powerful adjunct to other more traditional forms of cancer treatment. Its advantages are that it can be beneficial even if only a portion of the tumor cells receive the transferred gene, there is no need for long-term gene expression, and it works with the immune system, rather than trying to defeat it. Anticancer gene therapy is already in significant use in the clinic, and is likely to become even more commonplace in the near future.

In summary, gene therapy covers several related areas of research and clinical treatment, all using the genetic material DNA as a drug. Gene therapy is currently being used, along with other techniques, to treat cancer. One day, gene therapy may also be used to treat a variety of hereditary and nonhereditary diseases, ranging from loss-of-function disorders such as muscular dystrophy and hemophilia, to gain-of-function disorders such as sickle cell disease, to viral diseases such as HIV-AIDS. Active areas of research include improvements in the methods of gene delivery to the individual tissues and cells of the body and the modulation of the immune response to gene delivery. Many challenges remain to the successful maturation of gene therapy from the laboratory to the clinical setting.