This protocol presents how to quantify AAV transduction efficiency in mouse retina using digital droplet PCR (dd-PCR) together with small scale AAV production, intravitreal injection, retinal imaging, and retinal genomic DNA isolation.
Many retinal cell biology laboratories now routinely use Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) for gene editing and regulatory applications. The efficiency of AAV transduction is usually critical, which affects the overall experimental outcomes. One of the main determinants for transduction efficiency is the serotype or variant of the AAV vector. Currently, various artificial AAV serotypes and variants are available with different affinities to host cell surface receptors. For retinal gene therapy, this results in varying degrees of transduction efficiencies for different retinal cell types. In addition, the injection route and the quality of AAV production may also affect the retinal AAV transduction efficiencies. Therefore, it is essential to compare the efficiency of different variants, batches, and methodologies. The digital droplet PCR (dd-PCR) method quantifies the nucleic acids with high precision and allows performing absolute quantification of a given target without any standard or a reference. Using dd-PCR, it is also feasible to assess the transduction efficiencies of AAVs by absolute quantification of AAV genome copy numbers within an injected retina. Here, we provide a straightforward method to quantify the transduction rate of AAVs in retinal cells using dd-PCR. With minor modifications, this methodology can also be the basis for the copy number quantification of mitochondrial DNA as well as assessing the efficiency of base editing, critical for several retinal diseases and gene therapy applications.
Adeno associated viruses (AAVs) are now commonly used for a variety of retinal gene therapy studies. AAVs provide a safe and efficient way of gene delivery with less immunogenicity and fewer genome integrations. AAV entry into the target cell occurs through endocytosis, which requires binding of receptors and co-receptors on the cell surface1,2. Therefore, the transduction efficiency of AAVs for different cell types depends mainly on the capsid and its interactions with the host cell receptors. AAVs have serotypes and each serotype can have distinct cellular/tissue tropisms and transduction efficiencies. There are also artificial AAV serotypes and variants generated by chemical modification of the virus capsid, production of hybrid capsids, peptide insertion, capsid shuffling, directed evolution, and rational mutagenesis3. Even minor changes in amino acid sequence or capsid structure can have an influence on interactions with host cell factors and result in different tropisms4. In addition to capsid variants, other factors like injection route and batch-to-batch variation of AAV production can affect the transduction efficiency of AAVs in the neuronal retina. Therefore, reliable methods for the comparison of transduction rates for different variants are necessary.
The majority of the methods for determining AAV transduction efficiency rely on reporter gene expression. These include fluorescent imaging, immunohistochemistry, western blot, or histochemical analysis of the reporter gene product5,6,7. However, due to the size constraint of AAVs, it is not always feasible to include reporter genes to monitor the transduction efficiency. Using strong promoters like the hybrid CMV enhancer/chicken beta-actin or Woodchuck hepatitis post-transcriptional regulatory element (WPRE) as an mRNA stabilizer sequence further complicates the size problem8. Therefore, it will also be beneficial to define the transduction rate of injected AAVs with a more direct methodology.
Digital droplet PCR (dd-PCR) is a powerful technique to quantify target DNA from minute amounts of samples. dd-PCR technology depends on encapsulation of the target DNA and PCR reaction mixture by oil droplets. Each dd-PCR reaction contains thousands of droplets. Each droplet is processed and analyzed as an independent PCR reaction9. Analysis of droplets enables calculating the absolute copy number of target DNA molecules in any sample by simply using the Poisson algorithm. Since the transduction efficiency of the AAVs is correlated with the copy number of AAV genomes in the neuronal retina, we used the dd-PCR method to quantify AAV genomes.
Here, we describe a dd-PCR methodology to calculate the transduction efficiency of AAV vectors from retinal genomic DNA6,10. First, AAVs that express tdTomato reporter were generated using the small scale protocol, and titered by the dd-PCR method11. Secondly, AAVs were intravitreally injected into the neuronal retina. To demonstrate the transduction efficiency, we first quantified tdTomato expression using fluorescent microscopy and ImageJ software. This was followed by the isolation of genomic DNA for the quantification of AAV genomes in injected retinas using dd-PCR. Comparison of tdTomato expression levels with the transduced AAV genomes quantified by the dd-PCR showed that the dd-PCR method accurately quantified the transduction efficiency of AAV vectors. Our protocols demonstrated a detailed description of a dd-PCR based methodology to quantify AAV transduction efficiencies. In this protocol, we also show the absolute number of AAV genomes that are transduced after intravitreal injections by simply using the dilution factor after genomic DNA isolation and the dd-PCR results. Overall, this protocol provides a powerful method, which would be an alternative to reporter expression to quantify transduction efficiencies of AAV vectors in the retina.
All experimental protocols were accepted by the Sabanci University ethics committee and experiments were conducted in accordance with the statement of 'The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology' for the use of animals in research
1. Small scale AAV production12
2. Intravitreal injection of AAV
3. Fluorescence and fundus imaging
4. Retina isolation
5. Tissue genomic DNA isolation
6. Droplet digital PCR analysis of mouse retina samples for quantification of viral genomes
Small scale AAV production is a fast and efficient method that provides vectors for intravitreal injections (Figure 1). Small scale AAV production usually gives titers within the range of 1 x 1012 GC/ml which is sufficient to detect reporter expression in the retina (Figure 2). Titering of AAV using dd-PCR gives consistent results. ITR2 and WPRE specific primers are routinely used and the starting concentration of each target molecule was calculated with dd-PCR software by modeling as a Poisson distribution. Calculations were finalized by multiplication of dilution factors and converted to genome copy per mL. AAVs that are produced for this protocol had titers of 1.63 x 1012 GC/mL and 1.7x 1012 GC/ml for AAV2/BP2 and AAV2/PHP.S7,15, respectively. For comparison, identical tdTomato expression constructs were used for both strains. We injected approximately equal titers of AAV for the quantification of AAV transduction efficiency. After injection of 1 µL from the aforementioned concentrations of AAVs, animals were imaged at 1 week and 2 week time points. A fundus and fluorescence imaging system was used for both AAV2/BP2 and AAV2/PHP.S injected retinas generating similar reporter expression profiles except for retina #1 (Figure 3A,B). TdTomato expression was quantified using ImageJ software for average gray value (mean fluorescence intensity) in order to cross compare transduction efficiency and reporter expression (Figure 3A,B). This is basically the sum of the gray values of all the pixels in the selection divided by the number of pixels16. Fluorescent images of Retina #1 showed only a small area of tdTomato expression, most likely due to backflow or leakage after intravitreal injections. Consistent with this finding, fluorescence intensity of retina #1 was 0.9 which was the lowest compared to all retinas that were intravitreally injected and imaged. Mean fluorescence intensity was between 4 – 11. This showed that the quantification of fluorescent images of tdTomato expression was successful and correlated with the images that were shown (Figure 3A,B).
After imaging of retinas, genomic DNA was isolated from injected retinas at 2-week time point. dd-PCR was performed using WPRE primers for AAV genome quantification. Mouse 18S was used for the normalization of AAV genomes to the mouse genome (Figure 3C)17. Consistent with the mean fluorescence intensity and images, retina #1 had a very low AAV genome copy number relative to 18S, 0.011 fold lower compared to retina #2. Moreover, retinas #2, 3, 4, and 5 give similar fold level differences. The fold differences compared to retina #2 for retinas #3, 4, and 5 were 1.75, 0.55, and 0.99, respectively. Among those, retina #3 both gave the highest fluorescent intensity and the AAV genome copy number. This already showed that quantification of transduced AAV genomes with dd-PCR correlates with the fluorescence intensity and thus to tdTomato expression that is observed. The dd-PCR method also allowed us to do absolute quantification of transduced AAVs. Absolute quantification of the total AAV genome per retina was calculated simply by multiplying the total number identified from dd-PCR and the dilution factor for genomic DNA. This yielded similar results compared to 18S normalized AAV genome transduction efficiency (Figure 3D).
Figure 1: Flow chart of the experimental procedures. Small scale AAV production is followed by dd-PCR -based AAV titering. AAVs are intravitreally injected into the adult retina. Follow up of animals were performed using a fundus and fluorescent imaging system in order to analyze the reporter expression. Fundus and fluorescent images were taken at 1 week and 2-week time points. Genomic DNA is isolated from injected retinas for analysis with dd-PCR to quantify the total AAV genome that is present in the injected retinas. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 2: AAV titering using the dd-PCR method. (A) Dd-PCR method benefits from encapsulated PCR reactions within a droplet. After PCR reaction using evagreen chemistry, positive and negative droplets for the target gene were analyzed to determine the absolute number of target DNAs within a solution. (red boxes in green droplets). (B) Representative dd-PCR data for AAV titering. Several batches of AAVs were titered using ITR2 primers. Positive and negative droplets are separated above and below the threshold (purple line). Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 3: Quantification of transduced AAV genomes in the retina by dd-PCR. 16-week-old wild type animals were intravitreally injected with AAV2/BP2 and AAV2/PHP.S vectors having 1.63 x 1012 GC/mL and 1.7x 1012 GC/mL concentrations, respectively. Both AAVs had the identical tdTomato expression construct and injection volume for all AAVs was 1 µL. Injected retinas (1-7) were followed up with fundus and fluorescence imaging. Images that are taken were quantified using Image J software. Despite the capsid difference, all animals had a fluorescence mean intensity value (average gray value) ranging between 4 to 11 except retina #1 which had the lowest intensity, 0.9, and weak tdTomato expression. Red and gray columns are AAV2/BP2 and AAV2/PHP.S injected retinas, respectively (A-B). dd-PCR was performed using WPRE primers for AAV genome and 18S primer for normalization at 2-week time point. Retina # 1 also showed distinctively lower AAV copy numbers per 18S copies (C). Total AAV genomes per retina were also calculated using WPRE copy number and dilution factor for genomic DNA isolation (D). Red and gray squares are AAV2/BP2 and AAV2/PHP.S injected retinas, respectively. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
ddPCR Primers | |
ITR2 F | GGAACCCCTAGTGATGGAGTT |
ITR2 R | CGGCCTCAGTGAGCGA |
WPRE F | GGCTGTTGGGCACTGACAA |
WPRE R | CCAAGGAAAGGACGATGATTTC |
18S F | GGCCGTTCTTAGTTGGTGGA |
18S R | CCCGGACATCTAAGGGCATC |
Table 1: dd-PCR primer sequences. Sequences of forward and reverse primers for WPRE, ITR2, and mouse 18S.
In this protocol, we generated two AAV vectors that have different capsid proteins and then titered them accordingly. One of the most crucial steps of this protocol is to produce sufficient amounts of AAVs that will yield detectable reporter expression after the transduction12,13.
Titering of AAVs is also an important factor to adjust dosages of AAV for intravitreal injections. Once these important criteria are achieved, it is feasible to quantify the transduction efficiency of AAVs by dd-PCR methodology.
Many laboratories are using the quantitative PCR (qPCR) method for AAV titering. qPCR-based absolute quantification method requires a standard curve that has dilutions of known amounts of target DNA18. However, dd-PCR does not require a standard curve as it directly quantifies the total number of target molecules within a given sample by detecting the positive droplets that have at least one copy of target DNA. Since dd-PCR is an end-point analysis and no standard curve is required, the efficiency problems that occurred during the qPCR reaction are of less concern for dd-PCR like low-efficiency PCRs or the quality of standard curves 9. The dd-PCR methodology can be applied to samples that are already prepared for qPCR. As it was already mentioned in the Methods section for AAV titering, dd-PCR require diluted samples. This is a critical step since sample concentration should be adjusted in a way that there are sufficient negative droplets to perform the Poisson algorithm. In other words, it is not possible to perform the dd-PCR reaction with samples with too high concentrations of target DNA that do not yield negative droplets.
For both AAV titering and transduction efficiency measurements, different target sets are possible to use. For AAV titering, we mainly use AAV2 ITR specific primers due to the AAV2 backbone in our constructs. It is also possible to use WPRE and other gene-specific targets depending on the AAV construct that has been analyzed.
To evaluate the transduction efficiency of AAVs in the neuronal retina, we applied the dd-PCR method using whole retina samples to quantify the total amount of AAV genomes per retina. We assessed the accuracy of methodology by using an AAV vector that expresses tdTomato reporter. Comparison of dd-PCR results with tdTomato expression levels correlated except the two outliers. Retinas #6 and #7 yielded excess AAV genome copies despite showing similar fluorescence intensities compared to retinas #2,3 4 or 5. This may be because these retinas have higher transduction rates with limited expression levels or may in part be related to enduring AAV particles or vector DNA within the vitreous or neuronal retina19,20. Overall, this was the only limiting factor for our method and can easily be identified among other samples. We also quantified the total number of AAV genomes per retina which was one of the strengths of this methodology. This allows the comparison of data between different laboratories and batches of animals. Therefore, this method can easily be applied to assess the transduction efficiency of a new serotype, variant or batch to batch variation for AAV vectors that have no reporter expression and help us to cross-compare data at different settings. This is critical for AAV vectors that do not allow the expression of a reporter due to size constraints.
This method also provides a basis for other types of sensitive assays that utilizes target DNA. Using the identical protocols, we can quantify mitochondrial genome copy numbers with appropriate primers. Further improvements are also possible including dissociation of retina and flow cytometry sorting steps to quantify the target DNA in either single cells or batches of cells. Moreover, it is also feasible to assess the correction efficiency of base editing using this method21,22, which is also critical for several retinal diseases and gene therapies.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
We would like to thank Oezkan Keles, Josephine Jüttner, and Prof. Botond Roska, Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel, Complex Viruses Platform for their help and support for AAV production. We also would like to thank Prof. Jean Bennett, Perelman School of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania for the AAV8/BP2 strain. Animal work is performed at the Gebze Technical University animal facility. For that, we thank Leyla Dikmetas and Prof. Uygar Halis Tazebay for technical assistance and support for animal husbandry. We also would like to thank Dr. Fatma Ozdemir for her comments on the manuscript. This work is supported by TUBITAK, grant numbers 118C226 and 121N275, and Sabanci University Integration grant.
96-Well Semi-Skirted ddPCR plates | BioRad | 12001925 | ddPCR |
Amicon Filter | Millipore | UFC910096 | AAV |
C1000 TOUCH 96 DEEP WELLS | BioRad | 1851197 | ddPCR |
C57BL/6JRj mice strain | Janvier | C57BL/6JRj | Mice |
DG8 gaskets | BioRad | 1863009 | ddPCR |
DG8 Cartridges | BioRad | 1864008 | ddPCR |
DMEM | Lonza | BE12-604Q | AAV |
DPBS | PAN BIOTECH | L 1825 | AAV |
Droplet generation oil eva green | BioRad | 1864006 | ddPCR |
Droplet reader oil | BioRad | 1863004 | ddPCR |
FBS | PAN BIOTECH | p30-3306 | AAV |
Foil seals for PX1 PCR Plate sealer | BioRad | 1814040 | ddPCR |
Insulin Syringes | BD Medical | 320933 | Intravitreal injection |
Isoflurane | ADEKA LAÇ SANAY VE TCARET A.. | N01AB06 | anesthetic |
Microinjector MM33 | World Precision Instruments | 82-42-101-0000 | Intravitreal injection |
Micron IV | Phoenix Research Labs | Micron IV | Microscopy system based on 3-CCD color camera, frame grabber, and off-the-shelf software enables researchers to image mouse retinas. |
Mydfrin (%2.5 phenylephrine hydrochloride) | Alcon | S01FB01 | pupil dilation |
Nanofil Syringe 10 μl | World Precision Instruments | NANOFIL | Intravitreal injection |
Needle RN G36, 25 mm, PST 2 | World Precision Instruments | NF36BL-2 | Intravitreal injection |
PEI-MAX | Polyscience | 24765-1 | AAV |
Penicillin-Streptomycin | PAN BIOTECH | P06-07100 | AAV |
Plasmid pHGT1-Adeno1 | PlasmidFactory | PF1236 | AAV |
Pluronic F-68 | Gibco | 24040032 | AAV |
PX1 PCR Plate Sealer system | BioRad | 1814000 | ddPCR |
QX200 ddPCR EvaGreen Supermix | BioRad | 1864034 | ddPCR |
QX200 Droplet Reader/QX200 Droplet Generator | BioRad | 1864001 | ddPCR |
SPLITTER FORCEP WATCHER MAKER – LENGTH = 13.5 CM |
endostall medical | EJN-160-0155 | Retina isolation |
Steril Syringe Filter | AISIMO | ASF33PS22S | AAV |
Tissue Genomic DNA Kit | EcoSpin | E1070 | gDNA isolation |
Tobradex (0.3% tobramycin / 0.1% dexamethasone) | Alcon | S01CA01 | anti-inflammatory / antibiotic |
Tropamid (% 0.5 tropicamide) | Bilim laç Sanayi ve Ticaret A.. | S01FA06 | pupil dilation |
Turbonuclease | Accelagen | N0103L | AAV |
Viscotears (carbomer 2 mg/g) | Bausch+Lomb | S01XA20 | lubricant eye drop |