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Gene therapy as a potential tool for treating neuroblastoma—a focused review

Cancer Gene Therapy volume 23, pages 115–124 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Neuroblastoma, a solid tumor caused by rapid division of undifferentiated neuroblasts, is the most common childhood malignancy affecting children aged <5 years. Several approaches and strategies developed and tested to cure neuroblastoma have met with limited success due to different reasons. Many oncogenes are deregulated during the onset and development of neuroblastoma and thus offer an opportunity to circumvent this disease if the expression of these genes is restored to normalcy. Gene therapy is a powerful tool with the potential to inhibit the deleterious effects of oncogenes by inserting corrected/normal genes into the genome. Both viral and non-viral vector-based gene therapies have been developed and adopted to deliver the target genes into neuroblastoma cells. These attempts have given hope to bringing in a new regime of treatment against neuroblastoma. A few gene-therapy-based treatment strategies have been tested in limited clinical trials yielding some positive results. This mini review is an attempt to provide an overview of the available options of gene therapy to treat neuroblastoma.

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Acknowledgements

DS is supported by a ‘Fast Track Young Scientist’ grant (YSS/2014/000027) from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and an investigator initiated grant from Baxalta, USA.

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  1. M D Kumar and A Dravid: The authors contributed equally to the work.

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  1. School of Biosciences and Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India,

    M D Kumar, A Dravid, A Kumar & D Sen

  2. Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics Laboratory, Centre for Biomaterials, Cellular and Molecular Theranostics, Vellore Institute of Technology University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

    D Sen

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Kumar, M., Dravid, A., Kumar, A. et al. Gene therapy as a potential tool for treating neuroblastoma—a focused review. Cancer Gene Ther 23, 115–124 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/cgt.2016.16

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