Gene therapy - designer promoters for tumour targeting

One of the biggest challenges facing cancer therapy is to generate tumour-s pecific treatment strategies. Gene therapy hopes to achieve this by directi ng the activity of therapeutic genes specifically to the sites of disease. Of paramount importance for the success of this approach is the availabilit y of tumour-specific delivery systems: both the transductional targeting of the vector vehicle and the restriction of transgene expression to the tumo ur are promising strategies towards this goal. This review will focus on th e recent achievements in the field of transcriptional targeting and the dif ferent strategies to improve or design promoters with the desired specifici ties.