Dendritic cell-targeted lentiviral vector development

Lentiviral vectors have been highly useful both in research and gene therapy approaches to therapy because of their ability to stably express genes in a wide variety of target cell-types.  However, the vectors don’t work well in DCs because SAMHD1 blocks them.  We devised HIV-1-based lentiviral vectors that package SIV Vpx, thereby overcoming the block to infection.  Our vectors transduce DCs in tissue culture with a two-log increase in titer.  This high efficiency transduction provides a means by which DCs can now be used in gene therapy.