Adenoviral Vector Designed for p53 Dependent Transgene Expression and Replication as a Potential Tool for Cancer Gene Therapy

Background: A major obstacle of adenoviral gene therapy of cancer is the restriction of therapeutic gene expression or viral replication to malignant cells to avoid severe side effects on healthy tissue. In this study we present the bicistronic adenoviral vector Adp53dpR for gene therapy of cancer cells with altered p53-status. Methods/Results: Initially a luciferase reporter version of Adp53dpR was constructed. One transgene cistron of this vector consists of a luciferase gene under control of an artificial GAL4-binding CMV-promoter. Cotransfection experiments in hepatoma cell lines revealed that this promoter…