Adeno-retroviral chimeric viruses as in vivo transducing agents

Viruses as Therapeutic Agents

A relatively noncytopathic virus, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV),1 prevents the development of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in nonobese insulin-dependent diabetes (NOD) mice (1, 2). Typically, >90% of NOD female mice, by 9 mo of age, develop hyperglycemia, hypoinsulinemia, and lymphocytic infiltrates in the islets of Langerhans, with a cell destruction . However, their ...

[Viruses as agents inducing cutaneous neoplasms].

The oncogenic role of viruses in cutaneous neoplasms has been known by humankind for more than a century, when the origin of the common wart, or verruca vulgaris, was attributed to the human papilloma virus (HPV). Currently, virus-induced cutaneous neoplasms may be grouped into solid tumors and lymphoproliferative disorders. HPV, from which various serotypes are now known, each being linked to ...

Cytolytic viruses as potential anti-cancer agents.

The resistance of cancers to conventional therapies has inspired the search for novel strategies. One such approach, namely gene therapy, is based upon the introduction of genes such as those encoding suicide proteins, tumour suppressor proteins or cytokines into tumour cells by means of a genetic vector. The efficiency with which viruses transfer their genes from one host cell to another has l...

Chimeric measles viruses with a foreign envelope.

Measles virus (MV) and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) are both members of the Mononegavirales but are only distantly related. We generated two genetically stable chimeric viruses. In MGV, the reading frames of the MV envelope glycoproteins H and F were substituted by a single reading frame encoding the VSV G glycoprotein; MG/FV is similar but encodes a G/F hybrid in which the VSV G cytoplasmi...

Adeno-associated viruses as a method to induce atherosclerosis in mice and hamsters.