Patent ID: 8741279

Claim:
A method of treating a mammalian subject having a cell proliferative disorder comprising: a) contacting the mammalian subject with a therapeutically effective amount of a recombinant replication competent mammalian oncoretrovirus that infects mammalian cells, comprising: a retroviral GAG protein; a retroviral POL protein; a retroviral envelope; a mammalian oncoretroviral polynucleotide sequence comprising Long Terminal Repeat (LTR) sequences at the 5′ and 3′ ends of the mammalian oncoretroviral polynucleotide sequence; a cassette comprising an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) operably linked to heterologous nucleic acid sequence, wherein the cassette is positioned 5′ to the 3′ LTR, and just downstream and 3′ to the sequence encoding the retroviral envelope, wherein the heterologous nucleic acid encodes a suicide gene and wherein the heterologous nucleic acid is expressed; and cis-acting nucleic acid sequences for reverse transcription, packaging and integration in a target cell; and b) contacting the mammalian subject with a prodrug which is activated by the expression of the suicide gene; wherein the cell proliferative disorder is a neoplastic disorder or associated with an overgrowth of connective tissue.