Tau Seeding
Biosafety level 2 experiments are becoming more and more indispensable in the field of neurodegenerative and rare disease research. With this method, target proteins can be expressed or suppressed in distinct brain regions by intracerebral injection or more systemically by intraventricular or even intravenous injection of virus expressing cDNA or shRNA of the target protein.
The fully AAALAC accredited animal facility of QPS Neuropharmacology maintains a Biosafety Level 2 (BSL2) laboratory for mouse and rat experiments, including but not limited to e.g. Lenti-, Adeno- and Adeno-associated (AAV) virus injections.
To analyze the effect of specific viruses for the induction or treatment of Alzheimer’s or other cognitive diseases, injections in the mouse ERC can be performed.
In the here presented seeding study, P301L tau AAV was injected in the ERC of APPSL mice and spreading of tau in the hippocampus could be observed.
Figure 1: Recombinant Adeno-associated virus serotype 9 (AAV9) with human P301L Tau gene or empty vector was intracerebrally injected into the ERC of 3 month old male APPSL mice. A: Verification of injection site by ink injection into the entorhinal cortex. B: Tau expression in the ERC after P301L Tau virus injection. C: Spreading of tau into the hippocampus after P301L tau injection into the ERC of APPSL mice. All analyses were performed 1 month after virus injection.