Amer Elias
Gene therapy is a promising tool for cancer therapeutics. However, a major obstacle that persists is the lack of specificity of the expressed toxic gene against cancer cells. Binary systems based on site-specific recombination are one of the most effective potential approaches for cancer gene therapy. In these systems, a cancer specific promoter expresses a site-specific recombinase/integrase that in turn controls the expression of a toxin gene. We have developed a new HK022 bacteriophage integrase (Int) based binary system that activates a diphtheria toxin (DTA) gene expression specifically in cancer cells (Fig 1. A). The efficiency, and specificity of the system were assessed in-vitro and in-vivo in a lung cancer mouse model. The system presents a significant efficiency and specificity in series of criteria. Strikingly, employment of the developed system to treat mice with lung cancer demonstrates significantly increased longevity (Fig.1 B). The molecular factors that contribute to the system specificity will be described