A defective HIV-1 vector for gene transfer to human lymphocytes.

Somatic cell gene therapy is a rapidly evolving appraoch for the treatment of genetic disorders, cancer and infectious diseases. Retrovirus-mediated gene tranfer is currently the method of choice for human gene therapy trials, since it provides a high efficiency of gene transfer into replicating cells, stable integration of the transfered gene into the host genome, low copy number, and high levels of expression. Here we report on the feasability of the use of a human immunodeficiency virus type 1 vector for ex-vivo gene transfer to human lymphocytes.