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Early gestational gene transfer of IL-10 by systemic administration of lentiviral vector can prevent arthritis in a murine model

Gene Therapy volume 18, pages 719–726 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Gene therapy has been applied to murine models of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using a number of different strategies to downregulate inflammation in synovial joints. However, prolonged joint expression has been problematic. Our laboratory has found that early gestational intravascular injection of lentiviral vector leads to efficient transduction and sustained transgene expression in articular cartilage and synovium. In this study, we show that in utero gene transfer of IL-10 can prevent and decrease pathology in a murine model of RA. Following prenatal injection of lentiviral vector containing murine IL-10 gene, the cytokine was detectable in the serum, and the green fluorescent protein reporter gene was detectable in chondrocytes and synoviocytes of adult mice up to 21 weeks of age. Adult mice that had been treated prenatally were later immunized against type II collagen to induce an autoimmune arthritis. Compared with controls, prenatally treated mice demonstrated delayed onset of arthritis, decreased frequency of arthritis and markedly decreased severity of disease, by both clinical and histological criteria. This effect was directly related to levels of IL-10 expression, but no immunosuppressive effects of the therapy were observed. This study demonstrates proof of principle for the prenatal prevention and amelioration of RA by early gestational gene transfer of the anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-10.

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Acknowledgements

JLR was supported by T32 HD046402 from the National Institutes of Health. AWF is also supported by funds from the Ruth and Tristram C Colket, Jr Chair of Pediatric Surgery. We would like to thank Carlyn Todorow and Catherine Tsai for help with subjective joint scoring, Archana Bora for help with qPCR and Marcus Davey for help with statistical calculations.

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  1. Department of Surgery, The Children's Center for Fetal Research, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    J L Roybal, M Endo, A Radu, P W Zoltick & A W Flake

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  1. J L Roybal
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Correspondence to A W Flake.

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Roybal, J., Endo, M., Radu, A. et al. Early gestational gene transfer of IL-10 by systemic administration of lentiviral vector can prevent arthritis in a murine model. Gene Ther 18, 719–726 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/gt.2011.23

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