1. ¹Kao Biological Science Laboratories, Haga, Tochigi, Japan
2. ²Department of Dermatology, Tokyo Medical University, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan
3. ³The Skin Sciences Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
4. ⁴Special Pathogens Program, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
5. ⁵Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
6. ⁶Department of Dermatology, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA
7. ⁷Gene Therapy Program, Division of Medical Genetics, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Correspondence: Dr A Hachiya, Kao Biological Science Laboratories, Haga, Tochigi 321-3497, Japan. E-mail: hachiya.akira@kao.co.jp

Received 25 October 2006; Accepted 9 November 2006; Published online 1 February 2007.

Abstract

Pseudotyping lentiviral vector with other viral surface proteins could be applied for treating genetic anomalies in human skin. In this study, the modification of HIV vector tropism by pseudotyping with the envelope glycoprotein from vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), the Zaire Ebola (EboZ) virus, murine leukemia virus (MuLV), lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), Rabies or the rabies-related Mokola virus encoding LacZ as a reporter gene was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively in human skin xenografts. High transgene expression was detected in dermal fibroblasts transduced with VSV-G-, EboZ- or MuLV-pseudotyped HIV vector with tissue irregularities in the dermal compartments following repeated injections of EboZ- or LCMV-pseudotyped vectors. Four weeks after transduction, double-labeling immunofluorescence of -galactosidase and involucrin or integrin 1 demonstrated that VSV-G-, EboZ- or MuLV-pseudotyped HIV vector effectively targeted quiescent epidermal stem cells which underwent terminal differentiation resulting in transgene expression in their progenies. Among the six different pseudotyped HIV-based vectors evaluated, VSV-G-pseudotyped vector was found to be the most efficient viral glycoprotein for cutaneous transduction as demonstrated by the highest level of -galactosidase expression and genome copy number evaluated by TaqMan PCR.