A versatile viral toolkit for functional discovery in the nervous system.

The ability to precisely control transgene expression is essential for basic research and clinical applications. Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are non-pathogenic and can be used to drive stable expression in virtually any tissue, cell type, or species, but their limited genomic payload results in a trade-off between the transgenes that can be incorporated and the complexity of the regulatory elements controlling their expression. Resolving these competing imperatives in complex experiments inevitably results in compromises.

Viral manipulation of functionally distinct interneurons in mice, non-human primates and humans.

Recent success in identifying gene-regulatory elements in the context of recombinant adeno-associated virus vectors has enabled cell-type-restricted gene expression. However, within the cerebral cortex these tools are largely limited to broad classes of neurons. To overcome this limitation, we developed a strategy that led to the identification of multiple new enhancers to target functionally distinct neuronal subtypes.