Induction of cell death by adenoviruses

Adenoviruses have proved to be excellent tools for gaining insight into the regulation, and deregulation, of the mammalian cell cycle. With the widesp read clinical use of gene therapy fast approaching, there comes a need for a better understanding of how the cell death process is regulated. A greate r understanding will allow the development of therapeutic approaches that b oth maximise transgene expression while minimising cytotoxicity to the targ et cell. Consequently, much adenovirus research has centered on understandi ng the mechanisms governing adenovirus induced cell death or apoptosis. Thi s review discusses recent advances in the field of adenovirus cell death re gulation and evaluates the roles of implicated gene products and their resp ective data. The data suggest the existence of multiple virus gene products involved in cell death regulation and point towards several distinct, yet related, cell death pathways. A discussion of the shortcomings of current a denoviral research, along with a proposed model based upon the data is also given.