An HSV-1-H129 amplicon tracer system for rapid and efficient monosynaptic anterograde neural circuit tracing

Monosynaptic viral tracers are essential tools for dissecting neuronal connectomes and for targeted delivery of molecular sensors and effectors. Viral toxicity and complex multi-injection protocols are major limiting application barriers. To overcome these barriers, we developed an anterograde monosynaptic H129(Amp) tracer system based on HSV-1 strain H129. The H129(Amp) tracer system consists of two components: an H129-dTK-T2-pac(Flox) helper which assists H129(Amp) tracer’s propagation and transneuronal monosynaptic transmission. The shared viral features of tracer/helper allow for simultaneous single-injection and subsequent high expression efficiency from multiple-copy of expression cassettes in H129(Amp) tracer. These improvements of H129(Amp) tracer system shorten experiment duration from 28-day to 5-day for fast-bright monosynaptic tracing. The lack of toxic viral genes in the H129(Amp) tracer minimizes toxicity in postsynaptic neurons, thus offering the potential for functional anterograde mapping and long-term tracer delivery of genetic payloads. The H129(Amp) tracer system is a powerful tracing tool for revealing neuronal connectomes.