TEAM MEMBERS:
Blanca Gutiérrez (Project Lead)
Haley Anson
Gélis Galarcé
Marie Renahan
Off possible relevance:
It may be of interest to be able to manipulate cholinergic cells directly in AD rats. Normally, we do this through the ChAT-CRE line of rats. However, these cannot be bred with the AD rats because they come from different strains (F344 vs Long Evans). To get around this problem, it would be nice to be able to virally target ChAT cells directly. IgG192-Saporin is able to selectively target acetylcholine producing cells because the saporin is bound to a low affinity growth factor receptor (p75ntr) anti-body and because cholinergic cells are the only cells in the basal forebrain that express the p75ntr. Thus, the saporin selectively binds to these neurons and is taken up by them. A similar approach can be taken with viral particles. They can be bound to the same type of anti-body and thus the virus will selectively infect the cholinergic cells.
See file below: Antyborzec et al. Low-Affinity Neurotrophin Receptor p75 Promotes the Transduction of Targeted Lentiviral Vectors to Cholinergic Neurons of Rat Basal Forebrain. Neurotherapeutics (2016) 13: 859. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13311-016-0445-3