Drug target discovery using retroviruses

Recombinant hexahistidine arginine decarboxylase (hisADC) induced endogenous agmatine synthesis during stress

The arginine decarboxylase (ADC) is a significant functional enzyme, synthesizes agmatine through arginine metabolism, and agmatine was reported to posses protective properties in various tissues. This study first optimized the conditions for efficient hexahistidine tagged human ADC (hisADC) gene delivery into mouse fibroblast cell line (NIH3T3) using retroviral vector (pLXSN). Later, the functionality of the delivered hisADC gene in synthesizing agmatine during H(2)O(2) injury in NIH3T3 was also elucidated. Amplification of hisADC gene was performed using hisADC specific primers under specified conditions. The hisADC PCR product (1.4 kb) was ligated with pLXSN considering the restriction enzyme sites. The complete hisADC pLXSN clone was transfected into PT67 cell line following CalPhos Mammalian transfection method. RT-PCR and western blot results showed the specific and strong detection of hisADC genes in hisADC PT67 transfected cells compared with normal control and pLXSN transfected PT67 cells. The retrovirus containing hisADC gene (vhisADC) was infected into NIH3T3 (vhisADC NIH) using polybrene reagent. Immunocytochemical results showed hisADC expression in the cytoplasm of vhisADC NIH. HPLC analysis revealed high agmatine concentration in the vhisADC NIH, and the induced agmatine synthesized from the retroviral gene delivery prevented vhisADC NIH from H(2)O(2) injury which is evident by the decrease in lactate dehydrogenase (P < 0.05) leakage into the medium and less number of propidium iodide positive cells during injury compared to control group. The obtained results provide compelling evidence that higher level of hisADC transgene expression completely triggered the endogenous agmatine synthesis during H(2)O(2) injury thus protecting NIH3T3 cells against cytotoxicity.

Enhanced gene expression from retroviral vectors

BACKGROUND

Retroviruses are widely used to transfer genes to mammalian cells efficiently and stably. However, genetic elements required for high-level gene expression are incompatible with standard systems. The retroviral RNA genome is produced by cellular transcription and post-transcriptional processing within packaging cells: Introns present in the retroviral genomic transcript are removed by splicing, while polyadenylation signals lead to the production of ineffective truncated genomes. Furthermore strong enhancer/promoters within the retroviral payload lead to detrimental competition with the retroviral enhancer/promoter.

RESULTS

By exploiting a new method of producing the retroviral genome in vitro it is possible to produce infectious retroviral particles carrying a high-level expression cassette that completely prohibits production of infectious retroviral particles by conventional methods. We produced an expression cassette comprising a strong enhancer/promoter, an optimised intron, the GFP open reading frame and a strong polyadenylation signal. This cassette was cloned into both a conventional MMLV retroviral vector and a vector designed to allow in vitro transcription of the retroviral genome by T7 RNA polymerase. When the conventional retroviral vector was transfected into packaging cells, the expression cassette drove strong GFP expression, but no infectious retrovirus was produced. Introduction of the in vitro produced uncapped retroviral genomic transcript into the packaging cells did not lead to any detectable GFP expression. However, infectious retrovirus was easily recovered, and when used to infect target primary human cells led to very high GFP expression - up to 3.5 times greater than conventional retroviral LTR-driven expression.

CONCLUSION

Retroviral vectors carrying an optimized high-level expression cassette do not produce infectious virions when introduced into packaging cells by transfection of DNA. Infectious retrovirus carrying the same cassette is readily produced when packaging cells are transfected with in vitro transcribed retroviral genomic RNA. The applications of this technique are not limited to producing the higher levels of transgene expression demonstrated here. For example, novel reporters with alternatively spliced exon-intron configurations could readily be transduced into virtually any cell. Furthermore, because the in vitro transcripts are not translated within the packaging cells, retroviruses carrying genes lethal to the packaging cells can also be produced.