Glia/ischemia tissue dual specific gene expression vector for glioblastoma gene therapy

Abstract

For glia/hypoxia dual specific gene expression, a dual specific expression vector was developed. pEpo-NI2-SV-Luc or pEpo-NI2-SV-was constructed with the nestin intron 2 (NI2)-SV40 promoter and erythropoietin (Epo) enhancer for glia cell and hypoxia specific gene expression. Gene expression by pEpo-NI2-SV-Luc was higher than pSV-Luc in glioblastoma cells under hypoxia. pEpo-NI2-SV-TK was constructed and transfected into C6 cells. The growth of the pEpo-NI2-SV-TK transfected cells was significantly suppressed in the presence of GCV.