Long-term in vitro monitoring of AAV-transduction efficiencies in real-time with Hoechst 33342

Abstract

Adeno-associated viral transduction allows the introduction of nucleic fragments into cells and is widely used to modulate gene expressions in vitro and in vivo. It enables the study of genetic functions and disease mechanisms and, more recently, serves as a tool for gene repair. To achieve optimal transduction performance for a given cell type, selecting an appropriate serotype and the number of virus particles per cell, also known as the multiplicity of infection, is critical. Fluorescent proteins are one of the common reporter genes to visualize successfully transduced cells and assess transduction efficiencies. Traditional methods of measuring fluorescence-positive cells are endpoint analysis by flow cytometry or manual counting with a fluorescence microscope. However, the flow cytometry analysis does not allow further measurement in a test run, and manual counting by microscopy is time-consuming. Here, we present a method that repeatedly evaluates transduction efficiencies by adding the DNA-stain Hoechst 33342 during the transduction process combined with a microscope or live-cell imager and microplate image analysis software. The method achieves fast, high-throughput, reproducible, and real-time post-transduction analysis and allows for optimizing transduction parameters and screening for a proper approach.