RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A drug-tunable gene therapy for broad-spectrum protection against retinal degeneration
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 283887
DO 10.1101/283887
A1 Clayton P. Santiago
A1 Casey J. Keuthan
A1 Sanford L. Boye
A1 Shannon E. Boye
A1 Aisha A. Imam
A1 John D. Ash
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/03/28/283887.abstract
AB Retinal degenerations are a large cluster of diseases characterized by the irreversible loss of light-sensitive photoreceptors that impairs the vision of 9.1 million people in the US. An attractive treatment option is to use gene therapy to deliver broad-spectrum neuroprotective factors. However, this approach has had limited clinical translation because of the inability to control transgene expression. To address this problem, we generated an adeno-associated virus vector named RPF2 that was engineered to express domains of leukemia inhibitory factor fused to the destabilization domain of bacterial dihydrofolate reductase. Fusion proteins containing the destabilization domain are degraded in mammalian cells but can be stabilized with the binding of the drug trimethoprim. Our data show that expression levels of RPF2 are tightly regulated by the dose of trimethoprim, and can be reversed by trimethoprim withdrawal. We further show that stabilized RPF2 can protect photoreceptors and prevent blindness in treated mice.