title: Marker-free plasmids for biotechnological applications - implications and perspectives.
abstract: Nonviral gene therapy and DNA vaccines have become the first promising approaches to treat, cure, or ultimately prevent disease by providing genetic information encoded on a plasmid. Since 1989, more than 1800 clinical trials have been approved worldwide, and approximately 20% of them are using plasmid DNA (pDNA) as a vector system. Although much safer than viral approaches, DNA vectors generally do encode antibiotic resistance genes in the plasmid backbone. These antibiotic resistance markers constitute a possible safety risk, and they are associated with structural plasmid instabilities and decreased gene delivery efficiency. These drawbacks have initiated the development of various antibiotic marker-free selection approaches. We provide an overview on the potential implications of marker-free plasmids and perspectives for their successful biotechnological use in the future.
authors.affiliation: Institut Pasteur, Microbial Evolutionary Genomics, Département Génomes et Génétique, F-75015 Paris, France; CNRS, UMR3525, F-75015 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Pedro H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.forename: Juergen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mairhofer
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology / Q000639:trends*; D015316:Genetic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D010957:Plasmids / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D019444:Vaccines, DNA / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D019444:Vaccines, DNA
keywords: DNA vaccines; antibiotic resistance; gene therapy; genetically modified plants; plasmid vector design; stem cells.