摘要
Mapping neural circuits is critical for understanding the structure and function of the nervous system.Engineered viruses are a valuable tool for tracing neural circuits.However,current tracers do not fully meet the needs for this approach because of various drawbacks,such as toxicity and characteristics that are difficult to modify.Therefore,there is an urgent need to develop a new tracer with low toxicity and that allows for long-term studies.In this study,we constructed an engineered Sindbis virus(SINV)expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein(EGFP)reporter gene(SINV-EGFP)and found that it had no significant difference in biological characterization compared with the wild-type Sindbis virus in BHK-21 cells and neurons in vitro.We injected the virus into the visual circuit of mouse brain and found that the virus infected neurons in the local injected site and anterogradely spread in the neural circuits.Although the efficiency of transmission was limited,the findings demonstrate that SINV can be used as a new anterograde tracer to map neural circuits in mouse brain and that it spreads exclusively in the anterograde direction.Further,use of SINV in mouse brain research will provide longer time windows for circuit tracing than is possible with herpes simplex virus and vesicular stomatitis virus tracers.
基金
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Nos.31830035, 91732304, 91632303, 81661148053, and 31771156(all to FQX)
the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province of China, No.2018B030331001(to FQX)
the SIAT Innovation Program for Excellent Young Researchers of China,No.E1G023(to FJ)
the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of China, No.2021A1515011235(to FQX)
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Viral Vectors for Biomedicine of China, No.ZDSYS20200811142401005(to FQX)
the National Basic Research Program(973 Program)of China, No.2015CB755600(to FQX)
the Strategic Priority Research Program(B)of China, No.XDB32030200(to FQX)
