Despite advances in therapy, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) continues to be a global problem. New therapeutic avenues are being explored, including dendritic cell (DC)-based immunotherapy. While DCs can efficiently promote an immune response, their limited lifespan within the lymph node represents an obstacle to efficient immunotherapy.
;We examined different gene transfer methods, observing lentiviral transduction to be the most effective. Transduction using generated lentiviral transfer vectors encoding M11L and EGFP were used to determine effects on cellular viability. We did not observe significant differences in viability following apoptosis induction in transduced L cells. In primary DC cultures, transduction with and without M11L did not influence DC maturation or longevity in either the short or long term, though transduction was more efficient in the immature DC population. These results demonstrate that transduction is effective for gene transfer into DCs. However, techniques for dual gene expression must be further refined
