BACKGROUND Lentiviral vectors hold great promise as gene transfer vectors in gene therapeutic settings. However, problems related to the risk of insertional mutagenesis, transgene silencing and positional effects have stalled the use of such vectors in the clinic. Chromatin insulators are boundary elements that can prevent enhancer-promoter interactions, if placed between these elements, and pr...

Viruses can be engineered to efficiently deliver exogenous genes, but their natural gene delivery properties often fail to meet human therapeutic needs. Therefore, engineering viral vectors with new properties, including enhanced targeting abilities and resistance to immune responses, is a growing area of research. This review discusses protein engineering approaches to generate viral vectors w...

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 res...

many diseases, has some potential for the treatment of certain types of serious cancer such as lung cancer. During the past 15 years, more than 400 clinical studies in gene therapy have been evaluated and almost 70% of these studies were in the area of cancer gene therapy. However, even though much clinical research has been carried, the validity of this treatment has not been confirmed. The ke...

Transcription activator-like (TAL) effector nucleases (TALENs) have enabled the introduction of targeted genetic alterations into a broad range of cell lines and organisms. These customizable nucleases are comprised of programmable sequence-specific DNA-binding modules derived from TAL effector proteins fused to the non-specific FokI cleavage domain. Delivery of these nucleases into cells has p...

Gene therapy, the correction of dysfunctional or deleted genes by supplying the lacking component, has long been awaited as a means to permanently treat or reverse many genetic disorders. To achieve this, therapeutic DNA must be delivered to the nucleus of cells using a safe and efficient delivery vector. Although viral-based vectors have been utilized extensively due to their innate ability to...

Derivation of pluripotent stem cells from adult somatic tissues by reprogramming technology has opened new therapeutic possibilities. Current most efficient procedures for derivation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are based on the viral vectors, which represent the danger of insertional mutagenesis during incorporation of introduced genes into the host genome. To circumvent this proble...

Gene therapy vectors are among the treatments currently used to treat malignant tumors. Gene therapy vectors use a specific therapeutic transgene that causes death in cancer cells. In early attempts at gene therapy, therapeutic transgenes were driven by non-specific vectors which induced toxicity to normal cells in addition to the cancer cells. Recently, novel cancer specific viral vectors have...

The development of efficient and safe carrier system to transfer DNA into cells is essential in non-viral gene therapy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of linear polyetheneimine (lPEI) (2500 Da) on the physicochemical and biological properties of lipopolyplexes constructed from liposomes and lPEI. Materials and Methods Different lipopolymers were synthesized from lPEI ...