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Title: retrotransposons in human gene therapy Post by: zena on Sep 10, 2011 In what way may we be able to take advantage of retrotransposons in human gene therapy?
Title: Re: retrotransposons in human gene therapy Post by: duddy on Sep 10, 2011 The recombination events that take place with the transposition of a retrotransposons could lead to transmission of RNA virus genes into germline cells, such as cells found in the thymus and testicles. So, it is possible that RNA virus vectors used for gene therapy could integrate into the human genome and this could be a gene that knocks out a defective gene in the body or a gene that may be missing. Essentially you're putting a human gene inside viral genome and having the human eat it so that it incorporates in ever cell of their body. However, if a retrotransposon is added to a DNA sequence instead of the proper DNA strand, it can cause a failure in the system when the organism doesn’t have the correct sequence that it needs to perform a specific task. This leads to instability in the genome. So you must be careful at the same time using this technique in gene therapy.
Does this make sense? :P |