Nature Medicine
5, 1143 - 1149 (1999)
doi:10.1038/13467
Tissue-specific consequences of the anti-adenoviral immune response:
implications for cardiac transplantsSherri Y. Chan1, Kewang Li1, Joseph R. Piccotti1, Marisa C. Louie1, Thomas A. Judge2, Laurence A. Turka2, Ernst J. Eichwald3
& D. Keith Bishop11
Section of General Surgery, Department of Surgery,
University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor,
Michigan 48109-0654, USA
2
Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6069,
USA
3
Department of Pathology, University of Utah,
Salt Lake City, Utah 84132, USA
Correspondence should be addressed to D. Keith Bishop keith.bishop@umich.eduThe immune response to adenoviral vectors can induce inflammation and loss
of transgene expression in transfected tissues. This would limit the use of
adenovirus-mediated gene transfer in disease states in which long-term gene
expression is required. While studying the effect of the anti-adenoviral immune
response in transplantation, we found that transgene expression persisted
in cardiac isografts transfected with an adenovirus encoding  -galactosidase.
Transfected grafts remained free of inflammation, despite the presence of
an immune response to the vector. Thus, adenovirus-mediated gene transfer
may have therapeutic value in cardiac transplantation and heart diseases.
Furthermore, immunological limitations of adenoviral vectors for gene therapy
are not universal for all tissue types.
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