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CRISPR/Cas9 Technology in Restoring Dystrophin Expression in iPSC-Derived Muscle Progenitors
Published on: September 14, 2019
Death after High-Dose rAAV9 Gene Therapy in a Patient with Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy
Angela Lek1, Brenda Wong1, Allison Keeler1
1From the Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven (A.L., K.M., S.H., K.W., S. Pajusalu, M.L.), and Cure Rare Disease, Woodbridge (R.H.) - both in Connecticut; the Departments of Pediatrics (B.W., A.K., R.A., D.K., T.F.) and Neurology (A.R.B.) and Horae Gene Therapy Center and the Li Weibo Institute for Rare Diseases Research (A.K., M.B., K. Sylvia, A.R.B., R.A., D.K., S. Parajuli, T.G., T.F.), University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, the Department of Pathology (J.P., C.K.C., H.L.), the Division of Genetics (J.M.S.), and Department of Cardiology (J.L.), Boston Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School (J.P., C.K.C., H.L.), Boston, and Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington (L.B., K. Sutton) - all in Massachusetts; the Department of Clinical Genetics, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Tartu (S. Pajusalu), and the Genetics and Personalized Medicine Clinic, Tartu University Hospital (S. Pajusalu) - both in Tartu, Estonia; and Regulatory Innovation, Raleigh, NC (D.B.).
None:
We treated a 27-year-old patient with Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) with recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) serotype 9 containing dSaCas9 (i.e., "dead" Staphylococcus aureus Cas9, in which the Cas9 nuclease activity has been inactivated) fused to VP64; this transgene was designed to up-regulate cortical dystrophin as a custom CRISPR-transactivator therapy. The dose of rAAV used was 1×1014 vector genomes per kilogram of body weight. Mild cardiac dysfunction and pericardial effusion developed, followed by acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and cardiac arrest 6 days after transgene treatment; the patient died 2 days later. A postmortem examination showed severe diffuse alveolar damage. Expression of transgene in the liver was minimal, and there was no evidence of AAV serotype 9 antibodies or effector T-cell reactivity in the organs. These findings indicate that an innate immune reaction caused ARDS in a patient with advanced DMD treated with high-dose rAAV gene therapy. (Funded by Cure Rare Disease.).
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