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Readministration of helper-dependent adenoviral vectors to mouse airway mediated via transient immunosuppression

Gene Therapy volume 18, pages 173–181 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The efficacy of adenovirus-mediated gene therapy is attenuated by the host immune responses to both vector and transgene products. Even for helper-dependent adenoviral (HD-Ad) vectors, which have all viral-coding sequences deleted, the viral capsid proteins still cause immune reactions. In order to improve the efficiency in transgene expression during HD-Ad vector readministration, we administered cyclophosphamide to transiently modulate the mouse immune system. We delivered a high dose (5 × 1010 vector particles (vp) per mouse) of empty HD-Ad to the mouse airway to induce an initial immune response. After 4 weeks, the mice were readministered with an HD-Ad vector containing either the reporter gene, LacZ, or the gene for the human cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) (1.5 × 1010 vp per mouse). We found that the expression of both transgenes was greatly improved by the administration of cyclophosphamide when compared with the expression in mice without the immunosuppressing drug. We also found that the high dose of the empty HD-Ad vector administered intranasally does not induce an acute systemic immune response, but it does elicit an acute local response of proinflammatory cytokine production. Antibodies against Ad vector, including the neutralizing antibodies, were greatly reduced by the presence of cyclophosphamide in vector readministratiton. Moreover, cyclophosphamide reduced the infiltration of inflammatory cells, including total leukocytes, lymphocytes, CD4+ and CD8+T cells. These results indicate that transient administration of immunosuppressive agent can be used to extend transgene expression as well as attenuating immunogenicity to HD-Ad vectors in airway readministration.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Deborah J Field for reading the paper. This work was partially supported by Operating Grants from the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to JH and AC and from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Foundation Fighting Blindness-Canada to JH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology and Experimental Medicine, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    H Cao, T Yang, X-F Li, J Wu, C Duan, A L Coates & J Hu

  2. Department of Preventive Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

    T Yang

  3. Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China

    X-F Li

  4. Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    A L Coates & J Hu

  5. Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    J Hu

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Correspondence to J Hu.

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Cao, H., Yang, T., Li, XF. et al. Readministration of helper-dependent adenoviral vectors to mouse airway mediated via transient immunosuppression. Gene Ther 18, 173–181 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/gt.2010.125

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