Engineering Novel AAV Vectors for Retinal Gene Therapy

用于视网膜基因治疗的新型 AAV 载体工程

• 批准号: 7149417
• 负责人: DAVID V SCHAFFER
• 金额: $ 21.69万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-08-01 至 2008-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7149417
• 关键词: birth; cell type; directed evolution; disease /disorder model; gene therapy; genes; retina

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Gene therapy has vast potential for treating and potentially curing a wide variety of disorders, in particular in a number of retinal diseases including glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and photoreceptor diseases. However, gene delivery technologies require significant improvements in cellular targeting, efficiency, and safety before promising findings in animal studies can be translated to the clinic. In particular, for retinal gene therapy it would be highly advantageous to transduce a single cell type that spans the entire retina for the delivery and secretion of a general neuroprotective factor throughout the retina to protect numerous populations of neurons that are affected by different retinal diseases, from retinal ganglion cells to photoreceptors. In addition, ideally this single cell type should be accessible from an intravitreal injection, as subretinal injections are more invasive and disruptive to the retina. Unfortunately, there is no vector capable of efficiently infecting the cell type that meets these needs, Muller glia. Vectors based on adeno-associated virus (AAV) have proven themselves to be highly promising in numerous retinal disease models, but they are also unfortunately incapable of Muller cell infection. We have developed novel directed evolution technology to generate new mutants of AAV with new properties, including altered receptor binding, and we propose to evolve variants capable of efficient Muller cell transduction. In parallel, the basic mechanisms of AAV transduction of Muller cells will be explored. Finally, results will be translated to photoreceptor disease model. The novel approaches developed in this work will have general impact for the molecular engineering of enhanced viral gene delivery vehicles for a number of retinal diseases.

描述（由申请人提供）：基因疗法具有治疗和潜在治愈多种病症的巨大潜力，特别是在许多视网膜疾病中，包括青光眼、年龄相关性黄斑变性和感光体疾病。然而，在动物研究中有希望的发现可以转化为临床之前，基因递送技术需要在细胞靶向、效率和安全性方面进行重大改进。特别地，对于视网膜基因治疗，将非常有利的是，将跨越整个视网膜的单个细胞类型用于在整个视网膜中递送和分泌一般神经保护因子，以保护受不同视网膜疾病影响的许多神经元群体，从视网膜神经节细胞到光感受器。此外，理想情况下，这种单细胞类型应该可以通过玻璃体内注射获得，因为视网膜下注射对视网膜更具侵入性和破坏性。不幸的是，没有载体能够有效地感染满足这些需要的细胞类型，穆勒神经胶质细胞。基于腺相关病毒（AAV）的载体已被证明在许多视网膜疾病模型中是非常有前途的，但不幸的是，它们也不能感染Muller细胞。我们已经开发了新的定向进化技术，以产生具有新特性的AAV新突变体，包括改变受体结合，并且我们提出进化能够有效的Muller细胞转导的变体。同时，将探索AAV转导Muller细胞的基本机制。最后，将结果转化为感光细胞疾病模型。这项工作中开发的新方法将对增强病毒基因递送载体的分子工程产生普遍影响，用于许多视网膜疾病。