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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Neuroscience Methods and Techniques
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1531122

Comparative Analysis of AAV Serotypes for Transduction of Olfactory Sensory Neurons

Provisionally accepted
Benjamin David Webster Belfort Benjamin David Webster Belfort 1,2,3Johnathan D Jia Johnathan D Jia 2,3,4Alexandra Garza Alexandra Garza 1,2,3Anthony M Insalaco Anthony M Insalaco 1JP McGinnis JP McGinnis 1,2Brandon T Pekarek Brandon T Pekarek 1,2Joshua Ortiz-Guzman Joshua Ortiz-Guzman 2Burak Tepe Burak Tepe 1,2Hu Chen Hu Chen 2,4aSCENT- PD aSCENT- PD 3Zhandong Liu Zhandong Liu 2,3,4Benjamin R. Arenkiel Benjamin R. Arenkiel 1,2,3*
  • 1 Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, United States
  • 2 Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas, United States
  • 3 Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), Chevy Chase, Maryland, United States
  • 4 Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Olfactory sensory neurons within the nasal epithelium detect volatile odorants and relay odor information to the central nervous system. Unlike other sensory inputs, olfactory sensory neurons interface with the external environment and project their axons directly into the central nervous system. The use of adeno-associated viruses to target these neurons has garnered interest for applications in gene therapy, probing olfactory sensory neuron biology, and modeling disease. To date, there is no consensus on the optimal AAV serotype for efficient and selective transduction of olfactory sensory neurons in vivo. Here we utilized serial confocal imaging and single-nucleus RNA sequencing to evaluate the efficacy of 11 different AAV serotypes in transducing murine olfactory sensory neurons via non-invasive nasal inoculation. Our results reveal that AAV1, while highly effective, exhibited broad tropism, whereas AAV-DJ/8 showed the greatest specificity for olfactory sensory neurons.

    Keywords: aav, snRNASeq, Gene Therapy, Olfaction, Olfactory sensory neurons

    Received: 19 Nov 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Belfort, Jia, Garza, Insalaco, McGinnis, Pekarek, Ortiz-Guzman, Tepe, Chen, PD, Liu and Arenkiel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Benjamin R. Arenkiel, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, 77030, Texas, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.