Min Li *, Joel A. Rodriguez, William E. Fisher, Xiaoliu Zhang, Changyi Chen and Qizhi Yao * Molecular Surgeon Research Center, Elkins Pancreas Center, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030 ______________________________________________________________________...

Intracranial injection of viral vectors engineered to express a fluorescent protein is a versatile labeling technique for visualization of specific subsets of cells in different brain regions both in vivo and in brain sections. Unlike the injection of fluorescent dyes, viral labeling offers targeting of individual cell types and is less expensive and time consuming than establishing transgenic ...

Since the development of vaccinia virus as a vaccine vector in 1984, the utility of numerous viruses in vaccination strategies has been explored. In recent years, key improvements to existing vectors such as those based on adenovirus have led to significant improvements in immunogenicity and efficacy. Furthermore, exciting new vectors that exploit viruses such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) and vesic...

Single-stranded RNA viruses of both positive and negative polarity have been used as vectors for vaccine development. In this context, alphaviruses, flaviviruses, measles virus and rhabdoviruses have been engineered for expression of surface protein genes and antigens. Administration of replicon RNA vectors has resulted in strong immune responses and generation of neutralizing antibodies in var...

Recent achievements in the understanding of molecular events involved in the pathogenesis of central nervous system (CNS) injury have made gene transfer a promising approach for various neurological disorders, including cerebrovascular diseases. However, special obstacles, including the post-mitotic nature of neurons and the blood-brain barrier (BBB), constitute key challenges for gene delivery...

Development of gene therapy for the muscular dystrophies represents a daunting challenge requiring significant advances in our knowledge of the defective genes, muscle promoters, viral vectors, immune system surveillance and methods for systemic delivery of vectors. However, tremendous progress has been made in developing improved viral vectors and avoiding immune reactions against gene transfe...

In recent years, the use of viral vaccine vectors has gained immense interest over traditional vaccine strategies due to their ability to replicate in order to induce high immune responses against the intended antigens without the need for adjuvant co-administration. Several viral vectors, including but not necessarily limited to adenoviruses, poxviruses and alphaviruses are currently in variou...

BACKGROUND Circular forms of viral genomic DNA are generated during infection of cells with retroviruses like HIV-1. Such circles are unable to replicate and are eventually lost as a result of cell division, lending support to the prevalent notion that episomal retroviral DNA forms are dead-end products of reverse transcription. RESULTS We demonstrate that circular DNA generated during transd...

Viral vectors have a wide variety of applications ranging from fundamental studies of viruses to therapeutics. Recombinant viral vectors are usually constructed using methods of reverse genetics to obtain the genetic material of the viral vector. The physicochemical properties of DNA and RNA make them unable to access cells by themselves, and they require assistance to achieve intracellular del...

DNA based transposon vectors offer a mechanism for non-viral gene delivery into mamma‐ lian and human cells. These vectors work via a cut-and-paste mechanim whereby transpo‐ son DNA containing a transgene(s) of interest is integrated into chromosomal DNA by a transposase enzyme. The first DNA based transposon system which worked efficienty in human cells was sleeping beauty. This was followed a...