Brief Communications

Nature 440, 1123 (27 April 2006) | doi:10.1038/4401123a; Received 18 October 2005; Accepted 28 March 2006

There is a Brief Communications Arising (21 September 2006) associated with this document.

There is a Brief Communications Arising (21 September 2006) associated with this document.

Gene therapy: Therapeutic gene causing lymphoma

Niels-Bjarne Woods1, Virginie Bottero1, Manfred Schmidt2,3, Christof von Kalle2 and Inder M. Verma1

The development of T-cell leukaemia following the otherwise successful treatment of three patients with X-linked severe combined immune deficiency (X-SCID) in gene-therapy trials using haematopoietic stem cells1 has led to a re-evaluation of this approach2. Using a mouse model for gene therapy of X-SCID, we find that the corrective therapeutic gene IL2RG itself can act as a contributor to the genesis of T-cell lymphomas, with one-third of animals being affected. Gene-therapy trials for X-SCID, which have been based on the assumption that IL2RG is minimally oncogenic3, 4, 5, 6, 7, may therefore pose some risk to patients.

  1. Laboratory of Genetics, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California 92037, USA
    Email: verma@salk.edu
  2. National Center for Tumor Diseases Heidelberg and Department of Translational Oncology, German Cancer Research Center, Otto-Meyerhof-Zentrum Im Neuenheimer Feld 350, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
  3. Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital, 79106 Freiburg, and Institute of Molecular Medicine and Cell Research, Albert-Ludwigs-University, 79104 Freiburg, Germany

Received 18 October 2005 | Accepted 28 March 2006 |

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