[Progress in improvement of lentiviral vectors' transcriptional read-through]

Four out of 10 patients of X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (X-SCID) were finally developed leukemia after receiving the treatment of gene therapy delivered by gamma-retroviral vectors. This is due to the vector integrated to the proximity of lmo2 etc proto-oncogene promoters, leading to the activation of onco-gene expression, which raises the concern of the bio-safety of gene therapy vectors. Lentiviral vectors, especially self-inactivating lentiviral vectors, are considered to be much safer than gamma-retroviral vectors. However self-inactivating lentiviral vectors also have encountered with some unsafe factors and one of them is the problem of transcriptional "read-through" . During the past years, achievements have been made to reduce lentiviral vector transcriptional read-through, which are reviewed herein.