Adenovirus-mediated gene therapy of liver diseases

Recombinant adenoviruses can infect nondividing cells with high efficiency and are rapidly concentrated in the liver after systemic administration, ma king them attractive for use in liver-directed gene therapy. How ever, ther e are two hurdles to clinical application of these vectors. First, adenovir uses are episomal and have limited life spans within the cell. Second host antiviral immune responses reduce the duration of vector persistence and pr eclude long-term transgene expression by repeated injection of the vector S everal strategies have been designed for abrogation of the specific antiade noviral immune responses by modification of the host immune system or alter ation of the vector These strategies and the use of adenoviral vectors for the treatment of hereditary, infectious, and malignant diseases of the live r are discussed in this review.