Tropism Profiling of Lentiviral Vector Pseudotypes in Diverse Brain Tumor Models

Background: Lentiviral vectors (LVs) show promise as gene therapy tools for brain tumors, but optimal envelope protein choices for different tumor types have not been determined. Methodology: This study evaluated three pseudotyped LV variants-VSV-GP, FuG-B2, and LCMV-GP-across diverse brain tumor cell lines including glioblastoma (GBM), diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), medulloblastoma, and metastatic brain cancers. Results: VSV-GP and FuG-B2 pseudotypes significantly outperformed LCMV-GP across most tumor types. Both VSV-GP and FuG-B2 demonstrated high transduction efficiency in GBM and DIPG cells, though some cell lines displayed selective preferences for one pseudotype over the other. Medulloblastoma cells were challenging to transduce, with only VSV-GP achieving substantial efficacy. Metastatic brain cancers showed distinct tropism patterns: melanoma metastases were preferentially transduced by the FuG-B2 pseudotype, while lung metastases showed preference for the VSV-GP pseudotype. Conclusions: These findings suggest envelope protein selection should be tailored to specific brain tumor types. VSV-GP appears most suitable for medulloblastoma and lung metastases, FuG-B2 for melanoma metastases, and both for GBM and DIPG gene therapy applications. The study provides crucial guidance for translating lentiviral gene therapy to clinical applications, supporting personalized treatment strategies based on tumor-specific vector tropism profiles.