Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC)-based gene therapy has already reached clinical reality in a few applications. Fetal administration of genetically modified HSCs has only been feasible to date through invasive and morbid methods. It has been recently shown that native donor HSCs can reach the fetal circulation and bone marrow after simple delivery into the amniotic fluid, at least in a syngeneic healthy model. We sought to determine whether the transamniotic route could also be a practical alternative for the fetal administration of genetically modified HSCs in a comparable model. Pregnant Lewis rat dams underwent volume-matched intra-amniotic injections in all their fetuses (n = 47) on gestational day 17 (E17; term = E21-22) of donor HSCs genetically modified using a custom lentiviral vector designed to constitutively express both a firefly luciferase reporter gene and a human adenosine deaminase (ADA) transgene. Donor HSCs consisted of syngeneic cells isolated from the amniotic fluid and phenotyped by flow cytometry. Fetuses were euthanized at term, when seven select sites relevant to HSC-based therapies were screened for either luciferase activity by luminometry or for the presence of human ADA mRNA by digital droplet polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR). Among survivors (30/47; 64%), positive luminescence and positive human ADA expression were detected in the bone marrow (respectively, 33% and 76%), liver (respectively, 11% and 81%), spleen (respectively, 11% and 67%), thymus (respectively, 33% and 67%), lungs (respectively, 44% and 86%), and brain (respectively, 22% and 90%). Nucleated peripheral blood cells were analyzed only by ddPCR, showing positive human ADA expression at 54%. We conclude that genetically modified HSCs can reach the fetal circulation and fetal bone marrow after simple intra-amniotic administration in a syngeneic rat model. Gene therapy by transamniotic HSC delivery may become a practicable, minimally invasive strategy for the prenatal treatment of select hemoglobinopathies, immunodeficiencies, and inherited metabolic disorders.
Keywords: TRASCET; adenosine deaminase deficiency; fetal cell therapy; hematopoietic stem cell; transamniotic stem cell therapy.