Synapsin-tdTOMATO Lentivirus

The occurrence of cancer is mainly related to gene mutation, especially the activation of oncogenes, which mainly includes three activation mechanisms: gene mutation, amplification and chromosome rearrangement. At present, it is mainly treated by surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Gene therapy as a new method is in a rapid development stage, and the main approach is to introduce the target gene into the target cell. For abnormal genes in the process of tumor occurrence and development, gene fragments with therapeutic value are introduced, and they are effectively and permanently expressed in the target cells, so as to achieve the purpose of treatment. Some biological characteristics of lentiviral vectors make the idea of​gene therapy possible. Taking prostate cancer cells as the research object, Yu et al. inserted a promoter regulated by male hormones and specifically expressed in the prostate and another EGFP gene into lentivirus, and transfected normal cells and prostate cancer cells respectively. As a result, the target gene EGFP was expressed only in cancer cells, and male hormones could promote the expression of EGFP without changing the expression specificity. From the above experimental studies, it can be seen that if lentivirus is used in the clinical treatment of tumor diseases, it may bring new progress to the treatment of diseases.

Lentivirus vectors can stably transfect most non-dividing primary cells, including neurons, and can then be expressed stably and continuously, playing a therapeutic role. A large number of studies have shown that lentiviral vectors can be used to express genes related to various neurological diseases. Long-term treatment in animal models of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injury and other diseases has achieved good results. Poeschla et al. constructed a lentiviral vector for transfection in rats with Parkinson's disease (PD). The results showed that it can improve the number of rotations of rats, protect and prevent the degeneration of dopamine neurons, and alleviate the neurological symptoms of PD.