Autonomous parvovirus transduction of a gene under control of tissue-specific or inducible promoters

Several classes of viruses are in use, or are being developed, as gene therapy vectors. Viruses with small genomes containing few essential genes have the advantage of requiring only simple complementation systems to allow packaging of foreign DNA, substituted for the entire viral coding sequences. Retroviruses and the dependent parvovirus AAV (adeno-associated virus) have been used in this way, and both possess an efficient integration mechanism which should allow long-term expression of transduced genes. In some situations, however, long-term persistence may be undesirable and there is a need for small, non-integrating viral vectors. Autonomous parvoviruses, such as LuIII, have potential as such vectors for short-term expression of therapeutic genes. We previously described recombinants of LuIII that transduced reporter genes, expressed using the viral constitutive promoter, P4. We have now generated several recombinants containing regulated promoters. A virus including a liver-specific enhancer directed 10- to 20-fold preferential expression of the luciferase reporter in transduced human hepatoma (HepG2) versus HeLa cells. In additional LuIII recombinants, the luciferase reporter was linked with chimeric promoters containing binding sequences for either the yeast GAL4 protein or the bacterial tetracycline repressor. Luciferase expression was strongly activated when these viruses were used to infect cells containing a cognate trans-activator (GAL4 or tTA, a tetracycline repressor fusion with VP16 of herpes simplex), introduced by transfection. The response to tTA could be abolished, or reduced in a graded manner, by exposure of the infected cells to tetracycline. Further results suggested that an increase in basal expression, apparently mediated by the viral left terminal inverted repeat, could be minimized by interposing polyadenylation signals between this sequence and the promoter. These results confirm that appropriate transcriptional regulation can be achieved for genes transduced by an autonomous parvovirus vector. Such vectors therefore show promise for the delivery of therapeutic genes in situations requiring cell-specific, short-term expression, eg in targeting suicide genes for ablation of cancer cells.