Integration events, transformants

SN. Newman, TE. Boyton, NW. Gillham, BL. Randolph-Anderson, AM. Johnson, EH. Harris (1990) Transformation of chloroplast ribosomal RNA genes in Chlamydomonas molecular and genetic characterization of integration events. Genetics, 126 875-898... 

The other major arachidonic acid (AA) converting enzyme is an integral binding protein, 5-lipoxygenase, which is responsible for the initial transformation in a cascade of events towards the biosynthesis of leukotrienes. Leukotrienes are major mediators of numerous biological processes, including chemotaxis, and are implicated in hypersensitivity disorders like asthma. It was discovered in the early 1990s that another protein is necessary for the cellular synthesis of... 

Many of the safety issues concerning naked pDNA are similar to those of conventional pharmaceutical agents, such as the inherent toxicity of the pDNA itself. However, the use of pDNA for the delivery of therapeutic proteins poses novel theoretical safety concerns. These concerns involve any toxicity associated with expression of the encoded protein, the potential for unexpected and untoward consequences as a result of the persistent expression of a therapeutic protein which could lead to autoimmune disease, the biodistribution of the pDNA, and the potential for a transformation event resulting from the integration of the pDNA into chromosomal DNA. The safety of naked pDNA has now been well documented in pre-clinical studies in animals, and more recently, in clinical trials in humans. 

---