Adeno-associated Virus (AAV) Synthetic Inverted Terminal Repeat Enhances Tissue Specific Transduction and Altered Vector Induced Stress Response

While adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors have shown therapeutic benefit in clinical applications, noted challenges include low transduction efficiencies, poor cellular targeting, and vector related adverse events. Recently, it was demonstrated that a rationally designed synthetic inverted terminal repeat (SynITR) altered the AAV vector-induced DNA damage response and abrogated apoptosis in human embryonic stem cells. To explore the utility of AAV-SynITR for diverse gene therapy applications, vector production, transduction, and the cellular response were evaluated in various contexts. Regarding production, SynITR preparations exhibited comparable titers to wtITR in a serotype/transgene-independent manner. Despite slightly decreased transduction efficiency in various cell lines, intravenous administration of AAV8 vectors showed SynITR enhanced transduction in a tissue-specific manner in liver (>7-fold) and kidney and pancreas (>2-fold) at equivalent vector copy numbers; however, no differences were observed in muscle/heart/spleen tissues. Interestingly, persistent γH2AX, a marker of aging/chronic inflammation, was abundant in the liver and spleen following wtITR (but not SynITR) transduction. In human corneas, SynITR enhanced transduction up to 16-fold over wtITRs. These data demonstrate that SynITRs elicit tissue-specific transduction enhancement and alter the cellular stress response. Importantly, the SynITRs offer an alternative context to elucidate wtITR biology for targeted, enhanced, and potentially safer human gene therapy.