Ashley,
Here, verbatim, is the answer from my gene therapist friend (yes, he's foreign born):
>>To answer your question retroviruses integrate their genome in the host, what
may have happened here is that the transgene integrated at a place called a
promoter which serve to regulate the expression of a gene. Since this DNA was
integrated at this place this promoter may not work well anymore and be always
switched on. That can be bad if this gene controls cell replication by
example. I do not know what may happen with naked DNA, technically the same
could happen, although with a much lower probability, because the virus has a
machinery for this integration process, whereas the naked DNA does not. In
fact it may be much more complicated and I do not know all the details about
these technologies, but you have to know that there are full of black boxes in
these technologies.
Hope I answered to your questions ...<<
Cheers, Tuck |
