Gene therapy of gliomas: Receptor and transcriptional targeting

Through incremental increases in the overall therapeutic ratio of combined modality regimens, each addition of unique selective toxicity to a tumor moves one step closer to a cure. The primary advantage of adding gene therapy strategies to current oncologic regimens is the ability to design multiple levels of unique biologic selectivity into vectors using recombinant technology. This article presents an overview of current and potential methods for designing vectors targeted to high grade gliomas through selective cell entry or transcriptional regulation. Cell entry based methodologies are founded on increasing relative uptake of the vector through the chemical or recombinant addition of epitopes which bind to receptors selectively expressed on target cells. Transcriptional targeting utilizes promoter and enhancer systems which have potential for selectively activating transcription for transgene expression or vector propagation in target cells.