Current Trends in Viral Gene Therapy for Human Orthopaedic Regenerative Medicine

Abstract

Background: Viral vector-based therapeutic gene therapy is a potent strategy to enhance the intrinsic reparative abilities of human orthopaedic tissues. However, clinical application of viral gene transfer remains hindered by detrimental responses in the host against such vectors (immunogenic responses, vector dissemination to nontarget locations). Combining viral gene therapy techniques with tissue engineering procedures may offer strong tools to improve the current systems for applications in vivo.

Methods: The goal of this work is to provide an overview of the most recent systems exploiting biomaterial technologies and therapeutic viral gene transfer in human orthopaedic regenerative medicine.

Results: Integration of tissue engineering platforms with viral gene vectors is an active area of research in orthopaedics as a means to overcome the obstacles precluding effective viral gene therapy.

Conclusions: In light of promising preclinical data that may rapidly expand in a close future, biomaterial-guided viral gene therapy has a strong potential for translation in the field of human orthopaedic regenerative medicine.

Keywords: Biomaterials; Gene therapy; Orthopaedic regenerative medicine; Viral vectors.

Fig. 1

Current strategies combining viral gene therapy and tissue engineering approaches for human orthopaedic regenerative medicine. Biomaterials may be engineered either to act as scaffolds for genetically modified cells or to behave as a guiding system for optimized viral gene transfer, providing in both cases a supportive environment for improved tissue repair