Purpose: Adeno-associated virus (AAV) can infect a wide variety of mammalian cell types and is capable of infecting both dividing and non-dividing cell populations. Here we report the construction of a recombinant AAV vector which expresses the SV40 large T protein (AAV-T) and the use of this vector to immortalize primary cells from embryonic rat mesencephalon.
Methods: The AAV-T vector was constructed by introducing the BamH1 fragment of the pCMV/SVE/Neo plasmid containing T antigen and SV40 regulatory elements into the JM48 plasmid containing the inverted terminal repeats of AAV.