High transduction efficiency of human amniotic fluid stem cells mediated by adenovirus vectors

In the last few years some studies have shown the possibility of deriving progenitors with various potential from the amniotic fluid. Amniocentesis is a widely accepted method for prenatal diagnosis; it is associated with low risk both for the mother and the fetus and overcomes the ethical problems commonly associated to other sources. Recently we have described that amniotic fluid stem (AFS) cells, for their ability to differentiate to various lineages, could represent a good candidate for therapeutic applications. For gene therapy purposes human AFS (hAFS) cells should be genetically modified with a therapeutic gene and delivered systematically or injected directly into the tissue of interest.The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of transducing hAFS cells with adenoviral vectors and to determine whether transduced stem cells retain the ability to differentiate into different lineages. Herein, we showed that hAFS cells could be efficiently infected by first generation adenovirus vector...