Baculovirus (BV) holds promise as a vector for anticancer gene delivery to combat the most common liver cancer-hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, in vivo BV administration inevitably results in BV entry into non-HCC normal cells, leaky anticancer gene expression and possible toxicity. To improve the safety, we employed synthetic biology to engineer BV for transgene expression regulation. We first uncovered that miR-196a and miR-126 are exclusively expressed in HCC and normal cells, respectively, which allowed us to engineer a sensor based on distinct miRNA expression signature. We next assembled a synthetic switch by coupling the miRNA sensor and RNA binding protein L7Ae for translational repression, and incorporated the entire device into a single BV. The recombinant BV efficiently entered HCC and normal cells and enabled cis-acting transgene expression control, by turning OFF transgene expression in normal cells while switching ON transgene expression in HCC cells. Using pro-apoptotic hBax as the transgene, the switch-based BV selectively killed HCC cells in separate culture and mixed culture of HCC and normal cells. These data demonstrate the potential of synthetic switch-based BV to distinguish HCC and non-HCC normal cells for selective transgene expression control and killing of HCC cells.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 June 2025.
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#8,641,079
of 32,807,861 outputs
Outputs from Nucleic Acids Research
#15,124
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Outputs of similar age
#109,832
of 363,409 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nucleic Acids Research
#147
of 340 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,807,861 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 32,695 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.7. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 53% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 363,409 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 340 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 56% of its contemporaries.
