Abstract
Self-replicating RNA (repRNA) derived from Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus is a promising platform for gene therapy and confers prolonged gene expression due to its self-replicating capability, but repRNA suffers from a suboptimal transgene expression level due to its induction of intracellular innate response which may result in inhibition of translation. To improve transgene expression of repRNA, we introduced point mutations in the non-structural protein 1–4 (nsP1-4) coding region of VEE replicon vectors. As a proof of concept, inflammatory cytokines served as genes of interest and were cloned in their wild type and several mutant replicon vectors, followed by transfection in mammalian cells. Our data show that VEE replicons bearing nsP1GGAC-nsP2T or nsP1GGAC-nsP2AT mutations in the nsP1-4 coding region could significantly reduce the recognition by innate immunity as evidenced by the decreased production of type I interferon, and enhance transgene expression in host cells. Thus, the newly discovered mutant VEE replicon vectors could serve as promising gene expression platforms to advance VEE-derived repRNA-based gene therapies.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Recruitment Program of Global Experts, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82172080), and the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (2023A1515011454).
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Recruitment Program of Global Experts, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82172080), and the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (2023A1515011454), Yuan Zhang.
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GL performed the experiments, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. YZ supervised the studies and wrote the manuscript.
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Lin, G., Zhang, Y. Mutations in the non-structural protein coding region regulate gene expression from replicon RNAs derived from Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. Biotechnol Lett 45, 1029–1038 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-023-03379-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-023-03379-7