Long-Term Transplantation of Canine Keratinocytes Made Resistant to G418 Through Retrovirus-Mediated Gene Transfer

We studied cultured canine keratinocytes to determine whether they could serve as targets for retrovirus-mediated gene transfer and whether infected cells could persist after transplantation into dogs, a large random-bred model for gene transfer studies. Canine keratinocytes obtained from skin biopsy samples were cultured in vitro with lethally irradiated NIH 3T3 cells used as a feeder layer. The keratinocyte colonies consisted of squamous epithelium with numerous desmosomes, tonofilaments, and keratohyalin granules. In addition, the cells were strongly reactive with monoclonal antibodies to cytokeratin intermediate filament proteins. For the infection studies, we grew the keratinocytes on a feeder layer of lethally irradiated PA317 retrovirus packaging cells, which produced a helper-free amphotropic retroviral vector containing the neomycin phosphotransferase (neo) gene. After cocultivation, 34% (range, 10-76%) of the keratinocytes were found to be resistant to the neomycin analogue G418. Infected keratinocytes were then transplanted into the dog of origin; 1% (range,