Publications by authors named "Muul L"

Article Synopsis
  • Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) using gene-modified cells is an effective treatment for adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency (ADA-deficient SCID), particularly when combined with reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) and stopping enzyme replacement therapy (ERT).
  • In a phase II study involving 10 patients, gene-modified stem cells were successfully transplanted, showing good clinical outcomes, including normalization of blood cell activity and improved immune responses.
  • No serious complications occurred post-transplant, and many subjects remained free from further ERT, indicating strong safety and efficacy of the gene therapy approach.
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We conducted a gene therapy trial in 10 patients with adenosine deaminase (ADA)-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency using 2 slightly different retroviral vectors for the transduction of patients' bone marrow CD34(+) cells. Four subjects were treated without pretransplantation cytoreduction and remained on ADA enzyme-replacement therapy (ERT) throughout the procedure. Only transient (months), low-level (< 0.

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Measurement of proliferative responses of human lymphocytes is a fundamental technique for the assessment of their biological responses to various stimuli. Most simply, this involves measurement of the number of cells present in a culture before and after the addition of a stimulating agent. This unit contains several different prototype protocols to induce proliferation in lymphocytes following exposure to mitogens, antigens, allogeneic or autologous cells, or soluble factors.

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The reasons underlying the occurrence of multiple revertant genotypes in Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) patients remain unclear. We have identified more than 30 revertant genotypes in a C995T WAS patient having 10-15% revertant, WAS protein (WASp)-expressing circulating lymphocytes. Of 497 allospecific T-cell clones generated from the peripheral blood, 47.

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Tpl2 (Tumor progression locus 2), also known as Cot/MAP3K8, is a hematopoietically expressed serine-threonine kinase. Tpl2 is known to have critical functions in innate immunity in regulating tumor necrosis factor-alpha, Toll-like receptor, and G protein-coupled receptor signaling; however, our understanding of its physiological role in T cells is limited. We investigated the potential roles of Tpl2 in T cells and found that it was induced by interleukin-12 in human and mouse T cells in a Stat4-dependent manner.

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Measurement of proliferative responses of human lymphocytes is a fundamental technique for the assessment of their biological responses to various stimuli. Most simply, this involves measurement of the number of cells present in a culture before and after the addition of a stimulating agent. This unit contains several different prototype protocols to measure the proliferative response of lymphocytes following exposure to mitogens, antigens, allogeneic or autologous cells, or soluble factors.

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Spontaneous somatic reversions of inherited mutations are poorly understood phenomena that are thought to occur uncommonly in a variety of genetic disorders. When molecularly characterized, revertant cells have rarely exhibited more than one revertant genotype per patient. We analyzed individual allospecific T-cell clones derived from a Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) patient identified by flow cytometry to have 10% to 15% revertant, WAS protein-expressing lymphocytes in his blood.

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Gene-modified T cells were the first gene therapy tool used in clinical gene transfer trials. After the first applications in immunodeficiency diseases, T cell gene therapy has been extended to HIV infection and cancer. The primary obstacle to successful T cell gene therapy has proven to be the robust immune responses elicited by the gene-modified T cells even in severely immunosuppressed patients.

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Objective: Interleukin-17 (IL-17)-producing T helper cells have been proposed to represent a separate lineage of CD4+ cells, designated Th17 cells, which are regulated by the transcription factor retinoic acid-related orphan receptor gammat (RORgammat). However, despite advances in understanding murine Th17 differentiation, a systematic assessment of factors that promote the differentiation of naive human T cells to Th17 cells has not been reported. The present study was undertaken to assess the effects on naive human CD4+ T cells of cytokines known to promote murine Th17 cells.

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Recent studies have demonstrated that cell populations intended for therapeutic purposes that are cultured in heterologous animal products can acquire xenoantigens, potentially limiting their utility. In investigations of the immune response to murine embryonic stem cells, we found that a strong antibody response was generated after the second infusion. Both polyclonal and monoclonal antibody responses, derived from immunized mice, were found to be specific for bovine apolipoprotein B-100, which binds to abundant low-density lipoprotein receptors on the cell surface and is internalized.

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Interleukin 12 (IL-12) is a major inducer of interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) and the principal mediator of T helper 1 (Th1) differentiation. To identify IL-12-regulated genes, which might contribute to Th1 differentiation and IFNG regulation, we employed microarray analysis. Surprisingly, a ubiquitously expressed proprotein convertase (PC), furin, was one of the most consistently IL-12-induced genes in T cells, and among PCs was the only one regulated by this cytokine.

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The present study examined the safety and relative in vivo survival of genetically engineered CD4+ T lymphocytes in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals. Ten pairs of identical twins discordant for HIV infection were recruited, with the uninfected twin serving as the lymphocyte donor. Ten subjects were treated with a total of 19 separate infusions of retroviral vector-transduced CD4+ enriched T cells.

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Produced in response to a variety of pathogenic organisms, interleukin (IL)-12 and IL-23 are key immunoregulatory cytokines that coordinate innate and adaptive immune responses. These dimeric cytokines share a subunit, designated p40, and bind to a common receptor chain, IL-12R beta 1. The receptor for IL-12 is composed of IL-12R beta 1 and IL-12R beta 2, whereas IL-23 binds to a receptor composed of IL-12R beta 1 and IL-23R.

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The first human gene therapy experiment begun in September 1990 used a retroviral vector containing the human adenosine deaminase (ADA) cDNA to transduce mature peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with ADA deficiency, an inherited disorder of immunity. Two patients who had been treated with intramuscular injections of pegylated bovine ADA (PEG-ADA) for 2 to 4 years were enrolled in this trial and each received a total of approximately 10(11) cells in 11 or 12 infusions over a period of about 2 years. No adverse events were observed.

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The first approved clinical gene therapy trial for adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficiency employed autologous T cells grown in fetal calf serum (FCS)-supplemented medium and transduced with a retroviral vector (LASN) also produced in the presence of FCS. Ten years after their enrollment, both patients have circulating T cells containing vector DNA. However, whereas approximately 20% of the circulating T cells from patient 1 are still vector positive, less than 1% of patient 2's T cells have detectable vector.

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Treatment with isolated allogeneic mesenchymal cells has the potential to enhance the therapeutic effects of conventional bone marrow transplantation in patients with genetic disorders affecting mesenchymal tissues, including bone, cartilage, and muscle. To demonstrate the feasibility of mesenchymal cell therapy and to gain insight into the transplant biology of these cells, we used gene-marked, donor marrow-derived mesenchymal cells to treat six children who had undergone standard bone marrow transplantation for severe osteogenesis imperfecta. Each child received two infusions of the allogeneic cells.

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Clinical gene therapy trials for adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficiency have shown limited success of corrective gene transfer into autologous T lymphocytes and CD34(+) cells. In these trials, the levels of gene transduction and expression in hematopoietic cells have been assessed by DNA- or RNA-based assays and measurement of ADA enzyme activity. Although informative, these methods are rarely applied to clonal analysis.

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Mutations of the Janus kinase 3 (JAK3) have been previously described to cause an autosomal recessive variant of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) usually characterized by the near absence of T and NK cells, but preserved numbers of B lymphocytes (T-B+SCID). We now report a family whose JAK3 mutations are associated with the persistence of circulating T cells, resulting in previously undescribed clinical presentations, ranging from a nearly unaffected 18-year-old subject to an 8-year-old sibling with a severe lymphoproliferative disorder. Both siblings were found to be compound heterozygotes for the same deleterious JAK3 mutations: an A96G initiation start site mutation, resulting in a dysfunctional, truncated protein product and a G2775(+3)C mutation in the splice donor site sequence of intron 18, resulting in a splicing defect and a predicted premature stop.

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Host immune responses against foreign transgenes may be a major obstacle to successful gene therapy. To clarify the impact of an immune response to foreign transgene products on the survival of genetically modified cells, we studied the in vivo persistence of cells transduced with a vector expressing a foreign transgene compared to cells transduced with a nonexpressing vector in the clinically predictive rhesus macaque model. We constructed retroviral vectors containing the neomycin phosphotransferase gene (neo) sequences modified to prevent protein expression (nonexpressing vectors).

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The CD4+ T-cell pool in HIV-infected patients is in a constant state of flux as CD4+ T cells are infected and destroyed by HIV and new cells take their place. To study T-cell survival, we adoptively transferred peripheral blood lymphocytes transduced with the neomycin phosphotransferase gene between syngeneic twin pairs discordant for HIV infection. A stable fraction of marked CD4+ T cells persisted in the circulation for four to eighteen weeks after transfer in all patients.

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Adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency was the first disease investigated for gene therapy because of a postulated production or survival advantage for gene-corrected T lymphocytes, which may overcome inefficient gene transfer. Four years after three newborns with this disease were given infusions of transduced autologous umbilical cord blood CD34+ cells, the frequency of gene-containing T lymphocytes has risen to 1-10%, whereas the frequencies of other hematopoietic and lymphoid cells containing the gene remain at 0.01-0.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers implanted modified murine cells that produce retroviral vectors with the HSV-TK gene into the brains of rodents, showing tumor regression after administering ganciclovir (GCV).
  • In a study with 15 patients having recurrent malignant brain tumors, some smaller tumors (around 1.4 ml) showed antitumor activity.
  • The findings indicated that the presence of vector-producing cells was maintained for a week, but limited gene transfer means better methods for delivering the gene are necessary for effective clinical outcomes.
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In 1990, a clinical trial was started using retroviral-mediated transfer of the adenosine deaminase (ADA) gene into the T cells of two children with severe combined immunodeficiency (ADA- SCID). The number of blood T cells normalized as did many cellular and humoral immune responses. Gene treatment ended after 2 years, but integrated vector and ADA gene expression in T cells persisted.

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Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) are primary targets for gene therapy of inherited and acquired disorders of the immune system. We describe the development of an optimized transduction system that provides for high-efficiency retrovirus-mediated gene transfer into primary PBLs. This optimized transduction protocol combines centrifugation of the lymphocytes (1000 x g) at the inception of transduction with phosphate depletion, low-temperature incubation (32 degrees C), and the use of the packaging cell line PG13.

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As the AIDS pandemic spreads, the importance of developing effective vaccines against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) assumes increasing importance. Since prevention of any disease is a preferred goal, extensive efforts are being devoted to development of an effective vaccine capable of preventing HIV infection and/or disease. Although many investigators are studying the systemic immune response to HIV, relatively little is known about the mucosal immune response to HIV.

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