Lentiviral Vector Design for Immune Modulation
As a new therapeutic method, gene therapy has been widely used in various diseases treatment with many favorable advantages. Dedicated to exploring effective therapies and improving human health, Creative Biolabs has invested numerous resources and efforts to construct a comprehensive gene therapy platform, so as to provide professional and convenient services to global customers.
Immune Modulation and Genetic Immunotherapy
Immune modulation refers to using various methods to regulate the immune system, an important component of protection from sickness and disease, to achieve the purpose of treating diseases. As a kind of immunotherapy, immune modulation is not only immune system enhancement or activation, but it more means to balance the immune system to make it work properly. Several methods have been developed to modulate the immune system, such as immunomodulators, cell therapy, antibody, vaccine, etc., among which genetic immunotherapy has been widely explored and conducted as a novel potential therapeutic approach.
As a part of gene therapy, genetic immunotherapy introduces therapeutic genes into target cell types, usually immune cells, to enhance or suppress the immune system to modulate immune responses. The most extensive application of genetic immunotherapy is cancer therapy, by which (i) genes are transferred into tumor cells to express immune stimulator to induce antitumor immune cytotoxicity, (ii) genes are transferred into antigen-presenting cells or immune killer cell to enhance cytotoxicity against cancer cells.
Figure 1. Mechanism of genetic immunotherapy for cancer treatment. (Ribas, 2000)
Advantages of Lentivirus Vectors
For genetic immunotherapy, it is challenging to transfer the therapeutic genes into target cells and express stably without immunogenicity, which requires a delivery vector. Lentiviral vectors are potential tools to delivery target genes into dividing or non-dividing cells using retrovirus (mostly human immunodeficiency virus, HIV-1).
Figure 2. Key clinical uses of lentiviral vectors. (Milone, 2018)
With further investigation, the lentiviral vector has been considered to be an ideal gene carrier in immune modulation for diseases therapy, exhibiting many superiorities, such as:
- The capability of infecting both dividing and non-dividing cells with a large amount of sequence delivery.
- Lentiviral vectors can effectively transduce monocyte-derived dendritic cells without affecting their functionality, resulting in inducing a stronger immune response.
- The anti-transgene product-specific immune responses can be potentially applied for genetic vaccine development.
- The expression of immunosuppressive factors by lentiviral vectors also induce specific tolerance, which gives light on the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
- Specific design and optimization can be applied to overcome limitations and improve the performance of lentiviral vectors.
Figure 3. Overview of the immune responses to lentiviral vector systemic administration and possible strategies to modulate them. (Annoni, 2018)
Services
At Creative Biolabs, our scientists and professional staff are always ready to provide you a full range of lentiviral vectors gene therapy services for both laboratory research and clinical applications. Our mainly lentiviral vectors services generally include but not limited to:
- Lentiviral vector optimization
- Lentiviral vector design
- Safety determination
- Lentiviral vectors titration
- Advanced lentiviral vector development for both basic research and gene therapy
For more detailed information about lentiviral vector-based gene therapy, you can directly contact us.
References
- Ribas, A.; et al. (2000). Genetic immunotherapy for cancer. The Oncologist. 5(2): 87-98.
- Milone, M.C.; O'Doherty, U. (2018). Clinical use of lentiviral vectors. Leukemia. 32(7): 1529-1541.
- Annoni, A.; et al. (2018). Modulation of immune responses in lentiviral vector-mediated gene transfer. Cellular Immunology. 27: 103802.
