Characterization of an immune-evading doxycycline-inducible lentiviral vector for gene therapy in the spinal cord.

Gene therapy is a powerful approach to promote spinal cord regeneration. For a clinical application it is important to restrict therapeutic gene expression to the appropriate time window to limit unwanted side effects. The doxycycline (dox)-inducible system is a widely used regulatable gene expression platform, however, this system depends on a bacterial-derived immunogenic transactivator.