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Pseudo-typed Semliki Forest virus delivers EGFP into neurons

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Abstract

Semliki Forest virus (SFV), a neurotropic virus, has been used to deliver heterologous genes into cells in vitro and in vivo. In this study, we constructed a reporter SFV4-FL-EGFP and found that it can deliver EGFP into neurons located at the injection site without disseminating throughout the brain. Lacking of the capsid gene of SFV4-FL-EGFP does not block its life cycle, while forming replication-competent virus-like particles (VLPs). These VLPs hold subviral genome by using the packaging sequence (PS) located within the nsP2 gene, and can transfer their genome into cells. In addition, we found that the G protein of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSVG) can package SFV subviral genome, which is consistent with the previous reports. The G protein of rabies virus (RVG) could also package SFV subviral genome. These pseudo-typed SFV can deliver EGFP gene into neurons. Taken together, these findings may be used to construct various SFV-based delivery systems for virological studies, gene therapy, and neural circuit labeling.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Markus U. Ehrengruber for providing SFV replicon and helper cDNA clones, Hu liang for neural cell culture. This work was supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31400975, to F.J.), the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (2015CB755600, to F.X.), Strategic Priority Research Program (B) (XDB02050500, to F.X.), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91132307/H09, to F.X.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Fan Jia & Fuqiang Xu

  2. Brain Research Center, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Fan Jia, Huan Miao & Fuqiang Xu

  3. University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xutao Zhu & Fuqiang Xu

  4. Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China

    Fuqiang Xu

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  1. Fan Jia
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Correspondence to Fan Jia.

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Jia, F., Miao, H., Zhu, X. et al. Pseudo-typed Semliki Forest virus delivers EGFP into neurons. J. Neurovirol. 23, 205–215 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-016-0486-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-016-0486-8

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