title: Pancreatic cancer gene therapy: from molecular targets to delivery systems.
abstract: The continuous identification of molecular changes deregulating critical pathways in pancreatic tumor cells provides us with a large number of novel candidates to engineer gene-targeted approaches for pancreatic cancer treatment. Targets-both protein coding and non-coding-are being exploited in gene therapy to influence the deregulated pathways to facilitate cytotoxicity, enhance the immune response or sensitize to current treatments. Delivery vehicles based on viral or non-viral systems as well as cellular vectors with tumor homing characteristics are a critical part of the design of gene therapy strategies. The different behavior of tumoral versus non-tumoral cells inspires vector engineering with the generation of tumor selective products that can prevent potential toxic-associated effects. In the current review, a detailed analysis of the different targets, the delivery vectors, the preclinical approaches and a descriptive update on the conducted clinical trials are presented. Moreover, future possibilities in pancreatic cancer treatment by gene therapy strategies are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Programa Gens i Malaltia, Centre de Regulació Genòmica-CRG, UPF, Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona-PRBB and Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Raras (CIBERER), Barcelona, Spain. cristina.fillat@crg.es.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fillat
authors.forename: Anabel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jose
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bofill-Deros
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mato-Berciano
authors.forename: Maria Victoria
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Maliandi
authors.forename: Luciano
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sobrevals