Effective Gene Transfer into Regenerating Sciatic Nerves by Adenoviral Vectors: Potentials for Gene Therapy of Peripheral Nerve Injury

Replication defective adenoviral vectors have been demonstrated as an effective method for delivering genes into a variety of cell types and tissues both in vivo and in vitro. Transfecting genes into neuronal cells has proven to be difficult because of their lack of cell division. Since the major problem in neurological disease is the degeneration of the terminally differentiated neuronal cells, the adenoviral vectors ability to transfer genes into differentiated post-mitotic cells makes them advantageous for a gene delivery system for the nervous system. Here we showed that a replication defective recombinant adenovirus carrying the lacZ gene could infect the neuronal stem cells and even the differentiated neuronal cells derived from the central nervous system. The lacZ gene delivered into the neuronal cells was expressed efficiently. In addition, the recombinant virus also infected Schwann cells in intact and injured nerves in vivo. The expression of the lacZ gene lasted for 5 weeks, within which nerve regeneration is accomplished in the rat. Adenoviral vectors might thus be used to modulate Schwann cell gene expression for treating peripheral nerve injury or peripheral neuropathy.