[A novel application of baculovirus in mammalian gene therapy].
Baculovirus has been widely used for the production of recombinant proteins in insect cells. The extremely high yield by baculovirus-infected insect cells or larvae makes it an attractive tool for pharmaceutical protein production. Since the finding that baculovirus can efficiently transduce mammalian cells, the applications of baculovirus have been greatly expanded. Although AcMNPV (Autographa californica multiple NPV) fails to replicate in vertebrate cells, it does express alien genes with levels of expression that are dependent on the strength of the promoter used to drive transcription of the foreign gene. Following these findings, subsequent studies have rapidly expanded the list of permissive cells that include cell lines originating from human, rodent, porcine, bovine and even fish sources. Many tries have been done to study the mechanism of baxulovirus entry into mammalian cells, but the events responsible for virus uptake and detailed mechanisms of intracellular movement and nuclear entry of the virus are still largely unknown. The application of modified baculoviruses for in vivo gene delivery has also been demonstrated. In contrast to other commonly used viral vectors, baculoviruses have the unique property of being incapable of initiating a replication cycle and producing infectious virus in mammalian cells. The AcMNPV genome is large, thus rendering the virus flexibility to carry multiple genes or large inserts. The recombinant viruses can be readily constructed and produced to high titers simply by infecting insect cells, initiate little to none microscopically observable cytopathic effects on mammalian cells and have a good biosafety profile. These attributes will undoubtedly lead to the increased application and continued development of this system for efficient gene delivery into mammalian cells.
Cao
Cui-ping
CP
College of Animal Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China. cuipingcao@zju.edu.cn
Wu
Xiao-feng
XF
D000818:Animals; D016367:Baculoviridae / Q000235:genetics*; D002460:Cell Line / Q000821:virology; D015316:Genetic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005822:Genetic Vectors / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D007313:Insecta / Q000821:virology