Complex mosaicism is a novel approach to infectivity enhancement of adenovirus type 5-based vectors

The use of adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) for cancer therapy is limited by deficiency of its primary cell attachment receptor, coxsackie and adenovirus receptor (CAR), on cancer cells. Ad5 retargeting to alternate receptors through fiber genetic modification can be used to circumvent CAR dependence of its tropism, and thereby achieve infectivity enhancement. Here we propose and test a novel "complex mosaicism'' approach for fiber modification, which combines serotype chimerism with peptide ligand(s) incorporation in a single-fiber molecule. We incorporated integrin-binding peptide RGD-4C in the HI-loop, at the carboxy (C)-terminus, or both locales of the Ad3 knob, in the context of Ad5/3 chimera fiber in order to retarget simultaneously the Ad vector to integrins and Ad3 receptors. The infectivity enhancement of the fiber modifications was assessed in various cancer cell lines as cancer-targeting models. Replication-defective complex mosaic Ad-luc vectors bearing chimeric fiber (F.5/3), with or without C-terminal RGD-modification of Ad3 knob, demonstrated up to 55-fold gene transfer increase in bladder cancer cell lines. Although this augmentation was primarily due to Ad3 receptor targeting, some contribution of RGD-mediated integrin-targeting was also observed, suggesting that complex mosaic modification can function in a dual-receptor targeting via a single Ad3 fiber knob.