Surface engineering of lentiviral vectors for gene transfer into gene therapy target cells

• Incorporation of heterologous gps on the LV surface changes entry properties.
• MV-LVs represent a flexible platform to target transduction to specific cell type.
• Novel LVs for specific targeting in vivo with clinical perspectives.

Since they allow gene integration into their host genome, lentiviral vectors (LVs) have strong therapeutic potentials, as emphasized by recent clinical trials. The surface-display of the pantropic vesicular stomatitis virus G glycoprotein (VSV-G) on LVs resulted in powerful tools for fundamental and clinical research. However, improved LVs are required either to genetically modify cell types not permissive to classical VSV-G-LVs or to restrict entry to specific cell types. Incorporation of heterologous viral glycoproteins (gps) on LVs often require modification of their cytoplasmic tails and ligands can be inserted into their ectodomain to target LVs to specific receptors. Recently, measles virus (MV) gps have been identified as strong candidates for LV-retargeting to multiple cell types, with the potential to evolve toward clinical applications.