Summary

La production de vecteurs lentiviraux pour les cellules de transduction du Système Nerveux Central

Published: May 24, 2012
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Summary

Dans ce protocole, nous décrivons la production, la purification et le titrage des vecteurs lentiviraux. Nous donnons un exemple de transfert de gènes lentiviraux vecteur médiation dans neurones en culture primaire et les astrocytes. Nos méthodes peuvent également s'appliquer à d'autres types cellulaires<em> In vitro</em> Et<em> In vivo</em>.

Abstract

Efficient gene delivery in the central nervous system (CNS) is important in studying gene functions, modeling neurological diseases and developing therapeutic approaches. Lentiviral vectors are attractive tools in transduction of neurons and other cell types in CNS as they transduce both dividing and non-dividing cells, support sustained expression of transgenes, and have relatively large packaging capacity and low toxicity 1-3. Lentiviral vectors have been successfully used in transducing many neural cell types in vitro 4-6 and in animals 7-10.

Great efforts have been made to develop lentiviral vectors with improved biosafety and efficiency for gene delivery. The current third generation replication-defective and self-inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vectors are depicted in Figure 1. The required elements for vector packaging are split into four plasmids. In the lentiviral transfer plasmid, the U3 region in the 5′ long terminal repeat (LTR) is replaced with a strong promoter from another virus. This modification allows the transcription of the vector sequence independent of HIV-1 Tat protein that is normally required for HIV gene expression 11. The packaging signal (Ψ) is essential for encapsidation and the Rev-responsive element (RRE) is required for producing high titer vectors. The central polypurine tract (cPPT) is important for nuclear import of the vector DNA, a feature required for transducing non-dividing cells 12. In the 3′ LTR, the cis-regulatory sequences are completely removed from the U3 region. This deletion is copied to 5′ LTR after reverse transcription, resulting in transcriptional inactivation of both LTRs. Plasmid pMDLg/pRRE contains HIV-1 gag/pol genes, which provide structural proteins and reverse transcriptase. pRSV-Rev encodes Rev which binds to the RRE for efficient RNA export from the nucleus. pCMV-G encodes the vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (VSV-G) that replaces HIV-1 Env. VSV-G expands the tropism of the vectors and allows concentration via ultracentrifugation 13. All the genes encoding the accessory proteins, including Vif, Vpr, Vpu, and Nef are excluded in the packaging system. The production and manipulation of lentiviral vectors should be carried out according to NIH guidelines for research involving recombinant DNA (http://oba.od.nih.gov/oba/rac/Guidelines/NIH_Guidelines.pdf). An approval from individual Institutional Biological and Chemical Safety Committee may be required before using lentiviral vectors. Lentiviral vectors are commonly produced by cotransfection of 293T cells with lentiviral transfer plasmid and the helper plasmids encoding the proteins required for vector packaging. Many lentiviral transfer plasmids and helper plasmids can be obtained from Addgene, a non-profit plasmid repository (http://www.addgene.org/). Some stable packaging cell lines have been developed, but these systems provide less flexibility and their packaging efficiency generally declines over time 14, 15. Commercially available transfection kits may support high efficiency of transfection 16, but they can be very expensive for large scale vector preparations. Calcium phosphate precipitation methods provide highly efficient transfection of 293T cells and thus provide a reliable and cost effective approach for lentiviral vector production.

In this protocol, we produce lentiviral vectors by cotransfection of 293T cells with four plasmids based on the calcium phosphate precipitation principle, followed by purification and concentration with ultracentrifugation through a 20% sucrose cushion. The vector titers are determined by fluorescence- activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis or by real time qPCR. The production and titration of lentiviral vectors in this protocol can be finished with 9 days. We provide an example of transducing these vectors into murine neocortical cultures containing both neurons and astrocytes. We demonstrate that lentiviral vectors support high efficiency of transduction and cell type-specific gene expression in primary cultured cells from CNS.

Protocol

1. Emballage de vecteurs lentiviraux Les vecteurs lentiviraux sont produites par co-transfection d'un vecteur lentiviral de transfert et d'autres plasmides requis pour l'emballage dans des cellules 293T par la méthode de transfection au phosphate de calcium. Nous utilisons 10 100-mm boîtes de culture tissulaire dans ce protocole. Il peut être agrandie ou réduite en fonction des applications. La lignée cellulaire 293T est maintenue dans un milieu de Dulbecco Eagle modifié (DME…

Discussion

Dans ce protocole, nous avons montré la production de vecteurs lentiviraux et l'application de ces vecteurs dans les cultures néocorticales. Nous avons démontré l'efficacité et de la cellule spécifique au type de transduction par les vecteurs produits par ces méthodes. Lorsque le promoteur synapsine est utilisé, expression de la GFP est strictement neurone spécifique. Lorsque le promoteur GFAP est utilisé, expression de la GFP est exclusivement dans les astrocytes. Si aucune cellule spécifique au type…

Disclosures

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Acknowledgements

Ce travail a été soutenu par le NIH Neuroscience Blueprint subvention de base (P30 NS057105, BJS) à l'Université de Washington, le Programme de subvention de projet NS032636 (BJS) et par le Centre de l'espoir pour les troubles neurologiques.

Materials

Name of the reagent Company Catalogue number
DMEM Sigma-Aldrich D5796
MEM Invitrogen 11090-081
Fetal bovine serum Hyclone SV3001403
PBS Mediatech 21-040-CM
Trypsin-EDTA Sigma-Aldrich T3924
Sodium butyrate Sigma-Aldrich B5887
Hexadimethrine bromide (Polybrene) Sigma-Aldrich H9268
293T cells ATCC CRL-11268
HT1080 cells ATCC CCL-121
Falcon 100 x 20 mm tissue culture dish BD Biosciences 353003
1 x 3 ½ in polyallomoer centrifuge tube Beckman-Coulter 326823
0.2-micron syringe filter Corning 431219
QIAamp DNA Mini Kit Qiagen 51304

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Cite This Article
Li, M., Husic, N., Lin, Y., Snider, B. J. Production of Lentiviral Vectors for Transducing Cells from the Central Nervous System. J. Vis. Exp. (63), e4031, doi:10.3791/4031 (2012).

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