Abstract
The development of suicide gene therapy with gene products that are directly toxic to cells, such as the A subunit of diphtheria toxin (DT-A), has been hampered by the difficulty of engineering recombinant viruses. DT-A is a strong inhibitor of protein synthesis that acts by ADP-ribosylating elongation factor 2, and a low level of DT-A expression in virus producer cells prevents the production of recombinant virus. We analyzed here the natural resistance of packaging cells to DT-A toxicity, and we report that PG13 and PA317 packaging cell lines are resistant to H21G, a DT-A mutant. PG13 cells produce recombinant H21G virus that efficiently kills a variety of human tumor cells. Our finding indicates that PG13 packaging cells provide a new potential for the development of DT-A-based suicide gene therapy.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 7343-7348 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of virology |
Volume | 76 |
Issue number | 14 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2002 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Microbiology
- Immunology
- Insect Science
- Virology