Adenovirus – a blueprint for gene delivery

A central quest in gene therapy and vaccination is to achieve effective long-lasting expression at minimal dosage. Adenovirus vectors are widely used therapeutics safely deliver genes into many cell types. Adenoviruses evolved use elaborate trafficking particle deconstruction processes, efficient progeny formation. Here, we discuss recent insights how human adenoviruses their double-stranded DNA genome nuclei, effect lytic killing, non-lytic persistent infection or vector expression. The mechanisms underlying adenovirus entry, uncoating, nuclear transport provide a blueprint for the emerging field of synthetic virology, where artificial virus-like particles therapeutic payload cells without viral proteins genomes.