Gene Therapy for Adult T Cell Leukemia Using Human Immunodeficiency Virus Vector Carrying the Thymidine Kinase Gene of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1

ABSTRACT Adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) is derived from CD4+ T cells and has a poor prognosis because of its resistance to chemotherapy. To evaluate the effectiveness of gene therapy for ATL, the effect of ganciclovir on ATL cell lines transfected with the thymidine kinase gene of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-TK) was analyzed. To transfer the HSV-TK gene to ATL cells, a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vector that has specific infectivity to CD4+ cells was used. HSV-TK was inserted into the long terminal repeats of HIV-1 and driven by the SL3 promoter HXBSL3TK. HXBSL3TK was co-transfected with HXBCAT as a reporter into MT2 or HUT102 cells by DEAE-dextran. The cells were incubated with ganciclovir, and chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) activity was analyzed. The CAT activity of the MT2 cells and HUT102 cells transfected with HXBSL3TK decreased dose-dependently with ganciclovir. HXBSL3TK was also co-transfected into COS cells with an HIV-1 packaging vector that has gag, pol, and env driven...