Keeping adenovirus away from the liver.

While adenovirus holds many advantages as a vector for gene delivery, much of its full potential has been limited by the tendency of the most commonly used vectors to target the liver upon systemic delivery, resulting in unacceptable toxicity. Recently in Cell, Waddington et al. unmasked the virus-host interactions that lead to hepatic transduction. The results point a way toward avoiding this pathway during development of future generations of adenovirus vectors.