Abstract
The cumulative research directed towards decrease the side effect of the treatment e.g. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy, so the research tries to use DNA as drug. As gene products and their interactions with the cellular environment have been characterized, so the possibility of treating disease by using DNA as a drug has arisen. All proteins are coded for by DNA, and diseases ultimately result from the expression of one or more aberrant proteins, e.g. an oncogene or pathogen protein, or the lack of a functional form,in theory therefore, all diseases could be treated by expression of the appropriate protein in the effected cells.
Gene therapy represents one of the most important developments to occur in medicine, but before this can be realized problems common to all methods of gene delivery must be overcome.
In order to modify a specific cell type or tissue, the therapeutic gene must be efficiently delivered to the cell, in such a way that the gene can be expressed at the appropriate level and for a sufficient duration. Two broad approaches have been used to deliver DNA to cells, namely viral vectors and non-viral vectors, which have different advantages as regards efficiency, ease of production and safety. This research will review these methods and discuss the all of the viruses strains used in viral gene therapy.
