Sperm and testis mediated DNA transfer as a means of gene therapy

Abstract

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have revolutionized the treatment of infertility. However, many types of infertility may still not be addressable by ART. With recent successes in identifying many of the genetic factors responsible for male infertility and the future prospect of whole individual human genome sequencing to identify disease causing genes, the possible use of gene therapy for treating infertility deserves serious consideration. Gene therapy in the sperm and testis offers both opportunities and obstacles. The opportunities stem from the fact that numerous different approaches have been developed for introducing transgenes into the sperm and testis, mainly because of the interest in using sperm mediated gene transfer and testis mediated gene transfer as ways to generate transgenic animals. The obstacles arise from the fact that it may be very difficult to carry out gene therapy of the testis and sperm without also affecting the germline. Here we consider new developments in both sperm and testis mediated gene transfer, including the use of viral vectors, as well as the technical and ethical challenges facing those who would seek to use these approaches for gene therapy as a way to treat male infertility.

PiggyBac Transposon-Mediated Transgenesis in the Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) – First Time in Mollusks

“…It has been reported that exogenous DNA can stick to spermatozoa and then be carried into an egg via fertilization. This method of sperm mediation is widely used for gene transfer ( Parrington et al, 2011 ). Previous research has also investigated approaches for increasing the proportion of spermatozoa carrying exogenous DNA to improve the efficiency of transgenesis.…”

Nanobiotechnology in reproduction – pros and cons. A review

“…This method is designed to breed transgenic animals for use as preclinical models of human diseases, bioreactors for pharmaceutical products and in xenotransplantation experiments (Canovas et al, 2010;Parrington et al, 2011). Traditional and forced transfection methods for SMGT are electroporation, lipofection, DNA/ DMSO complexes, and restriction-enzyme-mediated integration.…”

Possible Production of Genome-Edited Animals Using Gene-Engineered Sperm

“…In Table 1, a summary of previous studies on TMGT-related experiments is listed. Furthermore, there are several excellent papers reviewing the SMGT/TMGT-related studies [28,[90][91][92][93], which provide a helpful survey of this field. IIGT in mice.…”