Successful gene therapy of Diamond-Blackfan anemia in a mouse model and human CD34+ cord blood hematopoietic stem cells using a clinically applicable lentiviral vector

Haematologica. 2022 Feb 1;107(2):446-456. doi: 10.3324/haematol.2020.269142.

Abstract

Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) is an inherited bone marrow failure disorder in which pure red blood cell aplasia is associated with physical malformations and a predisposition to cancer. Twentyfive percent of patients with DBA have mutations in a gene encoding ribosomal protein S19 (RPS19). Our previous proof-of-concept studies demonstrated that DBA phenotype could be successfully treated using lentiviral vectors in Rps19-deficient DBA mice. In our present study, we developed a clinically applicable single gene, self-inactivating lentiviral vector, containing the human RPS19 cDNA driven by the human elongation factor 1a short promoter, which can be used for clinical gene therapy development for RPS19-deficient DBA. We examined the efficacy and safety of the vector in a Rps19-deficient DBA mouse model and in human primary RPS19-deficient CD34+ cord blood cells. We observed that transduced Rps19-deficient bone marrow cells could reconstitute mice long-term and rescue the bone marrow failure and severe anemia observed in Rps19-deficient mice, with a low risk of mutagenesis and a highly polyclonal insertion site pattern. More importantly, the vector can also rescue impaired erythroid differentiation in human primary RPS19-deficient CD34+ cord blood hematopoietic stem cells. Collectively, our results demonstrate the efficacy and safety of using a clinically applicable lentiviral vector for the successful treatment of Rps19-deficient DBA in a mouse model and in human primary CD34+ cord blood cells. These findings show that this vector can be used to develop clinical gene therapy for RPS19-deficient DBA patients.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Anemia, Diamond-Blackfan* / genetics
  • Anemia, Diamond-Blackfan* / metabolism
  • Anemia, Diamond-Blackfan* / therapy
  • Animals
  • Fetal Blood / metabolism
  • Genetic Therapy
  • Hematopoietic Stem Cells / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Mice
  • Mutation
  • RNA, Small Interfering / genetics
  • Ribosomal Proteins / genetics

Substances

  • RNA, Small Interfering
  • Ribosomal Proteins

Grants and funding

Funding: This work was supported by a Hemato-Linne grant from the Swedish Research Council Linnaeus, project grants from the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Cancer Society and the Swedish Children’s Cancer Society (to SK), the Tobias Prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences financed by the Tobias Foundation, a clinical research grant from Lund University Hospital (to SK), European Union project grants STEMEXPAND and PERSIST (to SK), a grant from The Royal Physiographic Society of Lund, Sweden (to YL), and a grant from Stiftelsen Lars Hiertas Minne (to YL).