Lentiviral vector-mediated RNAi and its use for cancer research.

RNAi is a useful tool for functional analysis of genes and developing a potential therapeutic strategy for various diseases including cancers. RNAi can be applied in various forms. HIV vectors are useful for the stable transduction of genes to both replicating and quiescent cells with a broad host tropism, and have been developed for basic and clinical research of gene therapy. HIV vectors can deliver shRNAs for post-transcriptional silencing of specific genes with high efficiency, and have been used to evaluate various genes for their potential involvement in cancer development and malignant features, and may be useful for future cancer gene therapy. Here we describe the development of shRNA-expressing HIV vectors and their use in cancer research, as well as perspectives for their future use in cancer gene therapy.