Retrovolution: HIV-driven evolution of cellular genes and improvement of anticancer drug activation.

ABSTRACT: In evolution strategies aimed at isolating molecules with new functions, screening for the desired phenotype is generally performed in vitro or in bacteria. When the final goal of the strategy is the modification of the human cell, the mutants selected with these preliminary screenings may fail to confer the desired phenotype, due to the complex networks that regulate gene expression in higher eukaryotes. We developed a system where, by mimicking successive infection cycles with HIV-1 derived vectors containing the gene target of the evolution in their genome, libraries of gene mutants are generated in the human cell, where they can be directly screened. As a proof of concept we created a library of mutants of the human deoxycytidine kinase (dCK) gene, involved in the activation of nucleos

SUBMITTER: Rossolillo P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3426553 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature