Preclinical toxicity analyses of lentiviral vectors expressing the HIV-1 LTR-specific designer-recombinase Brec1.

Drug-based antiretroviral therapies (ART) efficiently suppress HIV replication in humans, but the virus persists as integrated proviral reservoirs in small numbers of cells. Importantly, ART cannot eliminate HIV from an infected individual, since it does not target the integrated provirus. Therefore, genome editing-based strategies that can inactivate or excise HIV genomes would provide the technology for novel curative therapies. In fact, the HIV-1 LTR-specific designer-recombinase Brec1 has been shown to remove integrated proviruses from infected cells and is highly efficacious on clinical HIV-1 isolates in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that Brec1 has the potential for clinical development of advanced HIV-1 eradication strategies in people living with HIV. In line with the preparation of a first-in-human advanced therapy medicinal product gene therapy trial, we here present an extensive preclinical evaluation of Brec1 and lentiviral vectors expressing the Brec1 transgene. This included detailed functional analysis of potential genomic off-target sites, assessing vector safety by investigating vector copy number (VCN) and the risk for potential vector-related insertional mutagenesis, as well as analyzing the potential of Brec1 to trigger an undesired strong T cell immune response. In conclusion, the antiviral designer-recombinase Brec1 is shown to lack any detectable cytopathic, genotoxic or T cell-related immunogenic effects, thereby meeting an important precondition for clinical application of the therapeutic lentiviral vector LV-Brec1 in novel HIV-1 curative strategies.
Competing Interests: The author’s have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests: Jan Chemnitz, Joachim Hauber, Frank Buchholz, Ilona Hauber, Niklas Beschorner and Maike Voges are founding partners of PROVIREX Genome Editing Therapies GmbH, which is commercially developing Brec1 technology. Niklas Beschorner and Maike Voges are full-time employees of PROVIREX Genome Editing Therapies GmbH since 2022, and Jan Chemnitz, Frank Buchholz, Joachim Hauber and Ilona Hauber are part-time employees. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare.
(Copyright: © 2024 Beschorner et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)