Transplacental drug delivery: gene and virus delivery to the trophoblast

The development of successful strategies for delivering genes to the placenta may provide new opportunities for modifying trophoblast function in order to learn more about trophoblast physiology and to offer novel therapeutic options for complications of pregnancy that result from placental dysfunction. Replication-deficient recombinant viral vectors are useful vehicles for introducing genes into cells in vitro and in vivo. Recombinant adenovirus and herpes simplex virus vectors are unable to efficiently infect and transduce terminally differentiated trophoblastic cells. However, recombinant adeno-associated virus vectors transduce terminally differentiated trophoblastic cells, and a Sindbis virus construct efficiently transduces and destroys trophoblastic cancer cells. We describe the features that make particular viral vectors attractive for gene transfer to trophoblastic cells.