AAV library screening identifies novel vector for efficient transduction of human aorta

Targeted gene delivery to vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) could prevent or improve a variety of diseases affecting the vasculature and particularly the aorta. Thus, we aimed to develop a delivery vector that efficiently targets VSMCs. We selected engineered adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids from a random AAV capsid library and tested the top enriched motifs in parallel screening through individual barcoding. This approach allowed us to distinguish capsids that only transduce cells based on genomic DNA (gDNA) from those also mediating transgene expression based on transcribed cDNA reads. After three rounds of selection on primary murine VSMCs (mVSMCs), we identified a novel targeting motif (RFTEKPA) that significantly improved transduction and gene expression efficiency over AAV9-wild type (WT) and increased expression in mVSMCs by 70% compared to the previously identified SLRSPPS peptide. Further analysis showed that the novel motif also improved expression in human aortic smooth muscle cells (HAoSMCs) and human aortic tissue ex vivo up to threefold compared to SLRSPPS and approximately 70-fold to AAV9-WT. This high cross-species transduction efficiency makes the novel capsid motif a potential candidate for future clinical application in vascular diseases.