Alejandro J. Roman

Human gene therapy for RPE65 isomerase deficiency activates the retinoid cycle of vision but with slow rod kinetics

The RPE65 gene encodes the isomerase of the retinoid cycle, the enzymatic pathway that underlies mammalian vision. Mutations in RPE65 disrupt the retinoid cycle and cause a congenital human blindness known as Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). We used adeno-associated virus-2-based RPE65 gene replacement therapy to treat three young adults with RPE65-LCA and measured their vision before and up to 90 days after the intervention. All three patients showed a statistically significant increase in visual sensitivity at 30 days after treatment localized to retinal areas that had received the vector. There were no changes in the effect between 30 and 90 days. Both cone- and rod-photoreceptor-based vision could be demonstrated in treated areas. For cones, there were increases of up to 1.7 log units (i.e., 50 fold); and for rods, there were gains of up to 4.8 log units (i.e., 63,000 fold). To assess what fraction of full vision potential was restored by gene therapy, we related the degree of light sensitivity to the level of remaining photoreceptors within the treatment area. We found that the intervention could overcome nearly all of the loss of light sensitivity resulting from the biochemical blockade. However, this reconstituted retinoid cycle was not completely normal. Resensitization kinetics of the newly treated rods were remarkably slow and required 8 h or more for the attainment of full sensitivity, compared with <1 h in normal eyes. Cone-sensitivity recovery time was rapid. These results demonstrate dramatic, albeit imperfect, recovery of rod- and cone-photoreceptor-based vision after RPE65 gene therapy.

Gene Therapy for Leber Congenital Amaurosis Caused by RPE65 Mutations: Safety and Efficacy in 15 Children and Adults Followed Up to 3 Years

OBJECTIVE To determine the safety and efficacy of subretinal gene therapy in the RPE65 form of Leber congenital amaurosis using recombinant adeno-associated virus 2 (rAAV2) carrying the RPE65 gene. DESIGN Open-label, dose-escalation phase I study of 15 patients (range, 11-30 years of age) evaluated after subretinal injection of the rAAV2- RPE65 vector into the worse-functioning eye. Five cohorts represented 4 dose levels and 2 different injection strategies. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Primary outcomes were systemic and ocular safety. Secondary outcomes assayed visual function with dark-adapted full-field sensitivity testing and visual acuity with Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study charts. Further assays included immune responses to the vector, static visual fields, pupillometry, mobility performance, and optical coherence tomography. RESULTS No systemic toxicity was detected; ocular adverse events were related to surgery. Visual function improved in all patients to different degrees; improvements were localized to treated areas. Cone and rod sensitivities increased significantly in the study eyes but not in the control eyes. Minor acuity improvements were recorded in many study and control eyes. Major acuity improvements occurred in study eyes with the lowest entry acuities and parafoveal fixation loci treated with subretinal injections. Other patients with better foveal structure lost retinal thickness and acuity after subfoveal injections. CONCLUSIONS Gene therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis caused by RPE65 mutations is sufficiently safe and substantially efficacious in the extrafoveal retina. There is no benefit and some risk in treating the fovea. No evidence of age-dependent effects was found. Our results point to specific treatment strategies for subsequent phases. APPLICATION TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Gene therapy for inherited retinal disease has the potential to become a future part of clinical practice. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00481546.

Human RPE65 gene therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis: persistence of early visual improvements and safety at 1 year.

Human gene therapy with rAAV2-vector was performed for the RPE65 form of childhood blindness called Leber congenital amaurosis. In three contemporaneous studies by independent groups, the procedure was deemed safe and there was evidence of visual gain in the short term. At 12 months after treatment, our young adult subjects remained healthy and without vector-related serious adverse events. Results of immunological assays to identify reaction to AAV serotype 2 capsid were unchanged from baseline measurements. Results of clinical eye examinations of study and control eyes, including visual acuities and central retinal structure by in vivo microscopy, were not different from those at the 3-month time point. The remarkable improvements in visual sensitivity we reported by 3 months were unchanged at 12 months. The retinal extent and magnitude of rod and cone components of the visual sensitivity between 3 and 12 months were also the same. The safety and efficacy of human retinal gene transfer with rAAV2-RPE65 vector extends to at least 1 year posttreatment.

Human retinal gene therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis shows advancing retinal degeneration despite enduring visual improvement

Significance The first retinal gene therapy in human blindness from RPE65 mutations has focused on safety and efficacy, as defined by improved vision. The disease component not studied, however, has been the fate of photoreceptors in this progressive retinal degeneration. We show that gene therapy improves vision for at least 3 y, but photoreceptor degeneration progresses unabated in humans. In the canine model, the same result occurs when treatment is at the disease stage equivalent to humans. The study shows the need for combinatorial therapy to improve vision in the short term but also slow retinal degeneration in the long term. Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) associated with retinal pigment epithelium-specific protein 65 kDa (RPE65) mutations is a severe hereditary blindness resulting from both dysfunction and degeneration of photoreceptors. Clinical trials with gene augmentation therapy have shown partial reversal of the dysfunction, but the effects on the degeneration are not known. We evaluated the consequences of gene therapy on retinal degeneration in patients with RPE65-LCA and its canine model. In untreated RPE65-LCA patients, there was dysfunction and degeneration of photoreceptors, even at the earliest ages. Examined serially over years, the outer photoreceptor nuclear layer showed progressive thinning. Treated RPE65-LCA showed substantial visual improvement in the short term and no detectable decline from this new level over the long term. However, retinal degeneration continued to progress unabated. In RPE65-mutant dogs, the first one-quarter of their lifespan showed only dysfunction, and there was normal outer photoreceptor nuclear layer thickness retina-wide. Dogs treated during the earlier dysfunction-only stage showed improved visual function and dramatic protection of treated photoreceptors from degeneration when measured 5–11 y later. Dogs treated later during the combined dysfunction and degeneration stage also showed visual function improvement, but photoreceptor loss continued unabated, the same as in human RPE65-LCA. The results suggest that, in RPE65 disease treatment, protection from visual function deterioration cannot be assumed to imply protection from degeneration. The effects of gene augmentation therapy are complex and suggest a need for a combinatorial strategy in RPE65-LCA to not only improve function in the short term but also slow retinal degeneration in the long term.

Vision 1 Year after Gene Therapy for Leber's Congenital Amaurosis

To the Editor: Lebers congenital amaurosis, a common cause of blindness in infants and children,1 recently became the first human genetic retinal disease to show improved vision in response to tre...

Improvement and Decline in Vision with Gene Therapy in Childhood Blindness

Retinal gene therapy for Lebers congenital amaurosis, an autosomal recessive childhood blindness, has been widely considered to be safe and efficacious. Three years after therapy, improvement in vision was maintained, but the rate of loss of photoreceptors in the treated retina was the same as that in the untreated retina. Here we describe long-term follow-up data from three treated patients. Topographic maps of visual sensitivity in treated regions, nearly 6 years after therapy for two of the patients and 4.5 years after therapy for the third patient, indicate progressive diminution of the areas of improved vision. (Funded by the National Eye Institute; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00481546.).

Gene therapy rescues photoreceptor blindness in dogs and paves the way for treating human X-linked retinitis pigmentosa

Hereditary retinal blindness is caused by mutations in genes expressed in photoreceptors or retinal pigment epithelium. Gene therapy in mouse and dog models of a primary retinal pigment epithelium disease has already been translated to human clinical trials with encouraging results. Treatment for common primary photoreceptor blindness, however, has not yet moved from proof of concept to the clinic. We evaluated gene augmentation therapy in two blinding canine photoreceptor diseases that model the common X-linked form of retinitis pigmentosa caused by mutations in the retinitis pigmentosa GTPase regulator (RPGR) gene, which encodes a photoreceptor ciliary protein, and provide evidence that the therapy is effective. After subretinal injections of adeno-associated virus-2/5–vectored human RPGR with human IRBP or GRK1 promoters, in vivo imaging showed preserved photoreceptor nuclei and inner/outer segments that were limited to treated areas. Both rod and cone photoreceptor function were greater in treated (three of four) than in control eyes. Histopathology indicated normal photoreceptor structure and reversal of opsin mislocalization in treated areas expressing human RPGR protein in rods and cones. Postreceptoral remodeling was also corrected: there was reversal of bipolar cell dendrite retraction evident with bipolar cell markers and preservation of outer plexiform layer thickness. Efficacy of gene therapy in these large animal models of X-linked retinitis pigmentosa provides a path for translation to human treatment.

ABCA4 disease progression and a proposed strategy for gene therapy

Autosomal recessive retinal diseases caused by mutations in the ABCA4 gene are being considered for gene replacement therapy. All individuals with ABCA4-disease show macular degeneration, but only some are thought to progress to retina-wide blindness. It is currently not predictable if or when specific ABCA4 genotypes will show extramacular disease, and how fast it will progress thereafter. Early clinical trials of focal subretinal gene therapy will aim to arrest disease progression in the extramacular retina. In 66 individuals with known disease-causing ABCA4 alleles, we defined retina-wide disease expression by measuring rod- and cone-photoreceptor-mediated vision. Serial measurements over a mean period of 8.7 years were consistent with a model wherein a normal plateau phase of variable length was followed by initiation of retina-wide disease that progressed exponentially. Once initiated, the mean rate of disease progression was 1.1 log/decade for rods and 0.45 log/decade for cones. Spatio-temporal progression of disease could be described as the sum of two components, one with a central-to-peripheral gradient and the other with a uniform retina-wide pattern. Estimates of the age of disease initiation were used as a severity metric and contributions made by each ABCA4 allele were predicted. One-third of the non-truncating alleles were found to cause more severe disease than premature truncations supporting the existence of a pathogenic component beyond simple loss of function. Genotype-based inclusion/exclusion criteria and prediction of the age of retina-wide disease initiation will be invaluable for selecting appropriate candidates for clinical trials in ABCA4 disease.

Human cone photoreceptor dependence on RPE65 isomerase

The visual (retinoid) cycle, the enzymatic pathway that regenerates chromophore after light absorption, is located primarily in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and is essential for rod photoreceptor survival. Whether this pathway also is essential for cone photoreceptor survival is unknown, and there are no data from man or monkey to address this question. The visual cycle is naturally disrupted in humans with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), which is caused by mutations in RPE65, the gene that encodes the retinoid isomerase. We investigated such patients over a wide age range (3–52 years) for effects on the cone-rich human fovea. In vivo microscopy of the fovea showed that, even at the youngest ages, patients with RPE65-LCA exhibited cone photoreceptor loss. This loss was incomplete, however, and residual cone photoreceptor structure and function persisted for decades. Basic questions about localization of RPE65 and isomerase activity in the primate eye were addressed by examining normal macaque. RPE65 was definitively localized by immunocytochemistry to the central RPE and, by immunoblotting, appeared to concentrate in the central retina. The central retinal RPE layer also showed a 4-fold higher retinoid isomerase activity than more peripheral RPE. Early cone photoreceptor losses in RPE65-LCA suggest that robust RPE65-based visual chromophore production is important for cones; the residual retained cone structure and function support the speculation that alternative pathways are critical for cone photoreceptor survival.

Probing Mechanisms of Photoreceptor Degeneration in a New Mouse Model of the Common Form of Autosomal Dominant Retinitis Pigmentosa due to P23H Opsin Mutations

Rhodopsin, the visual pigment mediating vision under dim light, is composed of the apoprotein opsin and the chromophore ligand 11-cis-retinal. A P23H mutation in the opsin gene is one of the most prevalent causes of the human blinding disease, autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. Although P23H cultured cell and transgenic animal models have been developed, there remains controversy over whether they fully mimic the human phenotype; and the exact mechanism by which this mutation leads to photoreceptor cell degeneration remains unknown. By generating P23H opsin knock-in mice, we found that the P23H protein was inadequately glycosylated with levels 1–10% that of wild type opsin. Moreover, the P23H protein failed to accumulate in rod photoreceptor cell endoplasmic reticulum but instead disrupted rod photoreceptor disks. Genetically engineered P23H mice lacking the chromophore showed accelerated photoreceptor cell degeneration. These results indicate that most synthesized P23H protein is degraded, and its retinal cytotoxicity is enhanced by lack of the 11-cis-retinal chromophore during rod outer segment development.