Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are commonly used gene delivery vehicles for neuroscience research. They have two engineerable features: the capsid (outer protein shell) and cargo (encapsulated genome). These features can be modified to enhance cell type or tissue tropism and control transgene expression, respectively. Several engineered AAV capsids with unique tropisms have been identified, including variants with enhanced central nervous system transduction, cell type specificity, and retrograde transport in neurons. Pairing these AAVs with modern gene regulatory elements and state-of-the-art reporter, sensor, and effector cargo enables highly specific transgene expression for anatomical and functional analyses of brain cells and circuits. Here, we discuss recent advances that provide a comprehensive (capsid and cargo) AAV toolkit for genetic access to molecularly defined brain cell types.

中文翻译：

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针对不同脑细胞的腺相关病毒工具包

重组腺相关病毒（AAV）是神经科学研究中常用的基因传递载体。它们具有两个可工程化的特征：衣壳（蛋白质外层）和货物（封装的基因组）。可以修改这些特征以分别增强细胞类型或组织向性并控制转基因表达。已鉴定出几种具有独特向性的工程 AAV 衣壳，包括具有增强中枢神经系统转导、细胞类型特异性和神经元逆行运输的变体。将这些 AAV 与现代基因调控元件以及最先进的报告基因、传感器和效应子货物配对，可实现高度特异性的转基因表达，用于脑细胞和回路的解剖和功能分析。在这里，我们讨论了最新的进展，这些进展提供了一个全面的（衣壳和货物）AAV 工具包，用于遗传获取分子定义的脑细胞类型。