Rescue of Adeno-Associated Virus Production by shRNA Cotransfection

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector technology is rapidly advancing and becoming not only the leading vector platform in the field of gene therapy but also a useful tool for functional genomic studies of novel proteins. As most vectors utilize constitutive promoters, this results in transgene expression during production. Depending on the transgene product, this could induce proapoptotic, cytostatic, or other unknown effects that interfere with producer cell function and, therefore, reduce viral vector yield. This can be a major limitation when trying to characterize poorly described genes. We describe the novel use of shRNA encoding plasmids cotransfected during packaging to limit the expression of the cytotoxic transgene product. This allowed the production of an otherwise unpackageable vector. The approach is simple, versatile, does not require modification of the vector plasmid, and should be easily adaptable to almost any transgene with minimal cost.