Virus-mediated gene transfer for cutaneous gene therapy.

Cutaneous gene therapy offers unique opportunities and limitations in the use of viral vectors for corrective gene transfer. Skin presents a formidable barrier to microbial invasion and is nourished by small blood vessels, thus ruling out the possibility of directed virus delivery through cannulated blood vessels. However, skin is physically accessible and its resident keratinocyte stem cell population is susceptible to direct in vivo transduction with retroviral vectors. Furthermore, keratinocyte stem cells transduced in culture have been shown to persist and to express the encoded transgene when grafted to immunocompromised mice. Cutaneous gene therapy trials are likely to involve virus-mediated transduction as a principal means of gene transfer.