529. Lentiviral Vectors with a Reduced Splicing Interference Potential Have a Significantly Improved Safety Profile In Vivo
Authors: Daniela Cesana, Pierangela Gallina, Laura Rudilosso, Andrea Calabria, Giulio Spinozzi, Ivan Merelli, Luciano Milanesi, Eugenio Montini
Journal: Molecular Therapy (2016)

Genotoxicity assays based on systemic vector injection into newborn tumor-prone Cdkn2a−/− and Cdkn2a+/− mice has shown that self-inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vector (LV) harboring strong or moderate enhancer/promoters in internal position caused acceleration in hematopoietic tumor onset compared to control mice. Integration site (IS) analysis in vector-induced tumors showed that oncogene activation or tumor suppressor inactivation occurs by mechanisms of aberrant splicing and/or enhancer-mediated overexpression of cellular genes. Although oncogene activation may be reduced by the use of SIN design, moderate cellular promoters and insulator sequences, how to reduce genotoxic splicing-capture events and aberrant transcript formation triggered by vector integration is still unclear. Here, we specifically designed SINLVs harboring sequences complementary to microRNAs (mirT sequence) which are active in hematopoietic cells (mir223 and mir142-3p) within the SIN LTR (mirsT-LTR.LV) or in the vector backbone and outside the gene expression cassette (mirT-LV). In our rationale, the mirT sequences when incorporated in an aberrantly generated mRNA would be selectively degraded through the miRNA pathway. Thus, by taking advantage of our in vivo models, we assessed the genotoxicity of these LVs with mirT sequences. Systemic injection of mirsT-LTR.LV (N=34) and mirT-LV (N=39) in Cdkn2a−/− mice did not cause any significant acceleration in hematopoietic tumor onset compared to un-injected mice (N=37) or mice injected with a SINLV that does not harbor mirT sequences (N=24). Similar results have been obtained after injection of the same vectors in Cdkn2a+/− mice (N=29 mirsT-LTR.LV, N=25 mirT-LV, N=40 un-injected and N=15 injected control mice). To gain additional information on the safety profile of these vectors, we performed IS analysis (N>10,000) in tumor-derived DNA. By this analysis, we previously found that Map3k8 activation by LV insertions was the major mechanism of genotoxicity when prototypical SINLVs were injected into Cdkn2a−/− mice. Now, we found that mice treated with mirsT-LTR.LV and mirT-LV did not show any Map3k8 activating insertions, suggesting that the new vectors are efficient in preventing its activation and confirming their superior safety profile. Furthermore, as expected, Pten was the most frequently targeted gene in tumors derived from Cdkn2a−/− mice injected with the LVs harboring mirT sequences. Pten insertions mainly targeted exons, suggesting the potential inactivation of its transcription unit. Finally, we found that Sfi1 was the major Common Insertion Site (CIS) in Cdkn2a+/− mice injected with LVs harboring mirT sequences. This CIS gene however appears to be the product of an intrinsic bias of LV integration, rather than the result of a selection process. Overall, our studies showed that these new advanced design LVs have a significantly improved safety profile and could represent the vector design of choice in future gene therapy applications.