Rapid and Sparse Labeling of Neurons Based on the Mutant Viru

Virus-like particle (VLP) of Semliki Forest virus (SFV) were used to develop a new tool to the approaches for rapid and sparse labeling of neurons in vivo.
Pub Date: 2019-03-19, DOI: 10.1007/s12264-019-00362-z， Email: sales@brainvta.com
Fan Jia• Xutao Zhu • Pei Lv • Liang Hu • Qing Liu • Sen Jin • Fuqiang Xu
Sparse labeling of neurons contributes to uncovering their morphology, and rapid expression of a ﬂuorescent protein reduces the experiment range. To achieve the goal of rapid and sparse labeling of neurons in vivo, we established a rapid method for depicting the ﬁne structure of neurons at 24 h post-infection based on a mutant virus-like particle of Semliki Forest virus. Approximately 0.014 ﬂuorescent focus-forming units of the mutant virus-like particle transferred enhanced green ﬂuorescent protein into neurons in vivo, and its afﬁnity for neurons in vivo was stronger than for neurons in vitro and BHK21 (baby hamster kidney) cells. Collectively, the mutant virus-like particle provides a robust and convenient way to reveal the ﬁne structure of neurons and is expected to be a helper virus for combining with other tools to determine their connectivity. Our work adds a new tool to the approaches for rapid and sparse labeling of neurons in vivo.

Fig. 1 Time course of SFV VLP infection of neurons.

To develop new tools with the properties of easy preparation, less time for protein expression, and a high cloning capacity, the authors found that mutant VLP rapidly and sparsely labeled neurons in vivo, and visualized the ﬁne structure of neurons in a sparse manner at 24 h post-infection based on the virus. Their work adds a new tool to the approaches for rapid and sparse labeling of neurons in vivo.

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