Sack, BK;
Merchant, S;
Markusic, DM;
Nathwani, AC;
Davidoff, AM;
Byrne, BJ;
Herzog, RW;
(2012)
Transient B cell depletion or improved transgene expression by codon optimization promote tolerance to factor VIII in gene therapy.
PLoS ONE
, 7
(5)
, Article e37671. 10.1371/journal.pone.0037671.
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Abstract
The major complication in the treatment of hemophilia A is the development of neutralizing antibodies (inhibitors) against factor VIII (FVIII). The current method for eradicating inhibitors, termed immune tolerance induction (ITI), is costly and protracted. Clinical protocols that prevent rather than treat inhibitors are not yet established. Liver-directed gene therapy hopes to achieve long-term correction of the disease while also inducing immune tolerance. We sought to investigate the use of adeno-associated viral (serotype 8) gene transfer to induce tolerance to human B domain deleted FVIII in hemophilia A mice. We administered an AAV8 vector with either human B domain deleted FVIII or a codon-optimized transgene, both under a liver-specific promoter to two strains of hemophilia A mice. Protein therapy or gene therapy was given either alone or in conjunction with anti-CD20 antibody-mediated B cell depletion. Gene therapy with a low-expressing vector resulted in sustained near-therapeutic expression. However, supplementary protein therapy revealed that gene transfer had sensitized mice to hFVIII in a high-responder strain but not in mice of a low-responding strain. This heightened response was ameliorated when gene therapy was delivered with anti-murine CD20 treatment. Transient B cell depletion prevented inhibitor formation in protein therapy, but failed to achieve a sustained hypo-responsiveness. Importantly, use of a codon-optimized hFVIII transgene resulted in sustained therapeutic expression and tolerance without a need for B cell depletion. Therefore, anti-CD20 may be beneficial in preventing vector-induced immune priming to FVIII, but higher levels of liver-restricted expression are preferred for tolerance.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Transient B cell depletion or improved transgene expression by codon optimization promote tolerance to factor VIII in gene therapy |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0037671 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0037671 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2012 Sack et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This study was supported by NIH grants R01 HL51390 and P01 HD078810 (to RWH), R01 HL073838 (to AMD), and P01 HL59412 and P01 DK58327 (to BJB). BKS was supported by a Dean's Fellowship from the University of Florida College of Medicine. SM was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science for Life Program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Cancer Institute UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Cancer Institute > Research Department of Haematology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1349509 |
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