Viral Vectors: Adenovirus

The transduction of stem cells has, for a long time, relied on the use of retroviral vectors for the expression of target genes. In particular, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) have required retroviral vectors for their production. Unfortunately, despite the practicality of retroviral vectors, they pose the risk of insertional mutagenesis (mutations caused by random integration of viral DNA into the host genome), since these viruses must integrate into the target genome, possibly leading to cancer, uncontrolled cell proliferation, [Page 1262]or other unintended side effects. Methods to transduce stem cells without viral integration have been in development for some time. Among these methods has been the use of adenoviral vectors (Ad vectors) to transduce a host of genes into embryonic stem cells (ES cells) ...