Lentiviral transduction of P140K MGMT into human CD34+ hematopoietic progenitors at low multiplicity of infection confers significant resistance to BG/BCNU and allows selection in vitro

Lentiviral vectors may improve hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene transfer because of their enhanced ability to transduce nondividing cells. However, many studies report efficient transduction only at high multiplicities of infection (MOI). This study reports efficient transduction of human CD34(+) cells with a drug resistance gene allowing post-transduction selection using lentivirus under low-MOI conditions that did not require cytokine stimulation or viral concentration. We used the P140K methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase mutant (P140K MGMT) as the gene insert into a second-generation lentiviral backbone and triple-plasmid transfection to generate vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-G protein-pseudotyped virus. The P140K MGMT gene product, O-6-alkylguanine-DNA-alkyltransferase (AGT), provides protection from the therapeutic drug combination of 1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea (BCNU) and the wild-type AGT inhibitor O-6-benzylguanine (BG). Low-speed spinoculation enhanced transduction more than addition of Polybrene or multiple virus exposures. Addition of cytokines was not required. Low-MOI transduction (less than or equal to 1) of human CD34(+) and CD34(+) lin(-) cells with P140K MGMT lentivirus resulted in an average 41% and 89% gene transfer rate as assessed by PCR, respectively, and concordant AGT expression that conferred substantial clonogenic survival advantage after BG/BCNU treatment. During in vitro drug selection, 87% of surviving CD34(+) cell-derived colony-forming units (CFU) were transduced. This work shows the potential utility of lentiviral vectors for drug resistance gene transfer to HSCs for the purpose of in vivo selection and marrow protection. Because drug selection will enrich for transduced progenitors, high MOI can be avoided, improving the safety profile of lentiviral gene transfer.