Tagging and Capturing of Lentiviral Vectors Using Short RNAs

Lentiviral (LV) vectors have emerged as powerful tools for transgene delivery ex vivo but in vivo gene therapy applications involving LV vectors have faced a number of challenges, including the low efficiency of transgene delivery, a lack of tissue specificity, immunogenicity to both the product encoded by the transgene and the vector, and the inactivation of the vector by the human complement cascade. To mitigate these issues, several engineering approaches, involving the covalent modification of vector particles or the incorporation of specific protein domains into the vector’s envelope, have been tested. Short synthetic oligonucleotides, including aptamers bound to the surface of LV vectors, may provide a novel means with which to retarget LV vectors to specific cells and to shield these vectors from neutralization by sera. The purpose of this study was to develop strategies to tether nucleic acid sequences, including short RNA sequences, to LV vector particles in a specific and tight fashion. To bind short RNA sequences to LV vector particles, a bacteriophage lambda N protein-derived RNA binding domain (λN), fused to the measles virus hemagglutinin protein, was used. The λN protein bound RNA sequences bearing a boxB RNA hairpin. To test this approach, we used an RNA aptamer specific to the human epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which was bound to LV vector particles via an RNA scaffold containing a boxB RNA motif. The results obtained confirmed that the EGFR-specific RNA aptamer bound to cells expressing EGFR and that the boxB containing the RNA scaffold was bound specifically to the λN RNA binding domain attached to the vector. These results show that LV vectors can be equipped with nucleic acid sequences to develop improved LV vectors for in vivo applications.